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News :: Labor |
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Labor Headlines 9-13-03 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
(No verified email address) |
15 Sep 2003
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Headlines broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays at 11 am on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. Korean farmer commits suicide during the protests against the WTO, Unions Speak Out Against WTO, WTO Hits Barrier of Organized Opposition, Bush's Anti-Worker Agenda Suffers Setback, Democrats Criticize Proposed Rollback in Veterans' Benefits |
Korean farmer commits suicide during the protests against the WTO
The Independent Media Center reported that a Korean farmer took his own life in protest against the policies of the WTO and at least eight other protestors were seriously injured by police during the first major march against the Fifth Ministerial of the WTO. Fifty-six year-old Lee Kyang Hae of the Korean Farmer’s Organization stabbed himself in front of the indifferent glare of police who were attempting to block passage of the march. The Korean farmer climbed the metal barricade, screamed a Korean phrase and jammed a knife into his stomach. His body fell from the top of the fence amid screams of help from the rest of his contingent. Kannikar [KAN-i-car] Kijtiwatchk [KEEJ-tee-Watchk], a Thai delegation that was near the Koreans said that the act speaks to the grave situation that farmers are facing in their countries and across the world as a result of the liberalization of commerce. A concerned Thai participant observed, that September 10 is the day that Koreans usually pay homage to their ancestors, but instead they decided to be at the WTO meeting in Cancun and protest.
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/feature/display/350/%20index.php
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=1503&e=4&u=/afp/20030911/ts_afp/wto_trade_conference_030911193014
Unions Speak Out Against WTO
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions is one of the non-governmental organizations attending this week's meeting of the world's most powerful governing body, the World Trade Organization. The WTO has the power to overturn national, state, and local laws--or levy dramatic fines--if those laws are found to be "barriers to trade" by secret trade courts overseen by the WTO. At this WTO meeting, labor leaders worldwide calls on the 146 trade ministers to develop proposals to help textile workers in developing countries deal with massive unemployment that they face when the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing ends next year. The ICFTU also calls on the WTO to address unfairness in agricultural trade. From the United States, the AFL-CIO is critical of the Bush administration's proposal to end all tariffs on industrial goods, a move that would accelerate the loss of industrial jobs in the United States. The AFL also criticizes Bush for refusing to place workers' rights on the agenda, a policy that mirrors that of Bush's predecessor, President Bill Clinton.
See the icftu website for short videos featuring workers in developing countries as they're forced to confront global capitalism. www.icftu.org
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/rights_ignored.cfm
WTO Hits Barrier of Organized Opposition
The World Trade Organization is holding crisis talks this weekend to try to prevent the talks from collapsing after a group of 21 poor and developing nations decided to get organized and bargain collectively with the wealthy nations that usually dictate rules of global commerce. The Group of 21--or G21--is headed by Brazil, China, and India, and it prevented the US and European Union from moving the agenda during the first two days of talks. Washington and Brussels blamed the G21 for the slow talks, accusing it of making demands on rich countries but offering nothing in return. But Indian Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley argued that price supports to farmers in rich nations were "literally pushing (poor farmers) into destitution.'' He urged members of the so-called Group of 21 to hold together. WTO members agreed at a meeting two years ago in Doha, Qatar, to finalize a global trade treaty by the end of 2004. However, negotiators have missed several important deadlines, and failure to make progress in Cancun could jeopardize that goal. Perhaps indicative of the slow progress of the meeting is how the for-profit press is downplaying the bad news. Most media companies are owned by large corporations that support the one-sided US trade proposals, and today the bad news about the WTO meeting did not merit make headlines at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune or the LA Times.
http://www.northlandposter.com/cgi-bin/Web_store/web_store.cgi?item_number=b07&cart_id=162823.27495
Bush's Anti-Worker Agenda Suffers Setback
The Republican-led war against wage earners suffered a setback last week when the Senate voted to prevent the Labor Department from taking away overtime pay from millions of workers in the US. For several months, the Bush administration has been trying to change the Fair Labor Standards Act to re-classify many hourly workers as managers, a move that would allow their employers to make them work more than 40 hours per week without paying them time and a half for the extra hours. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly defeated an amendment to block the overtime changes in July, but with last week's Senate vote, they'll need to re-consider the issue. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin introduced the barrier to Bush's agenda by way of an amendment to the Labor and Education Appropriations Bill. Bush has said he'll veto the bill if the worker protections are in the final version.
http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/overtimepay/ns09122003.cfm
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=267&row=2
Democrats Criticize Proposed Rollback in Veterans' Benefits
"Support our troops" is what lawmakers say when they're on the campaign trail and on TV news, but a new Republican proposal to reduce the cost of health care for veterans has angered veterans' groups. Democratic leaders in the Senate last week joined those veterans' groups in a letter to George Bush, criticizing him for reducing veterans' benefits. Under current practice, veterans receive compensation for all injuries sustained while in uniform, regardless if they occurred while on duty. Republicans are proposing to limit medical care to those injuries sustained while performing official military duties, which would disqualify about 1.5 million veterans now in the VA disability program. A congressional Republican aide called the rollback in veterans' benefits a "common-sense middle ground."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030912/pl_nm/congress_veterans_dc_1 |
See also:
http://cancun.indymedia.org
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu
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