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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Labor Headlines, 7-21-01 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
Email: peterm (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
21 Jul 2001
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Headlines to be broadcast on the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays at 11 a.m. on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. |
Genoa Shooting
On Friday, an Italian police officer shot a global justice activist in the head at close range, killing him. The killing happened in the green, or safe, zone in GEN-oa, Italy where Reuters news service estimates that 100,000 people are protesting a meeting of the leaders of the world\'s richest nations, known as the G8. While details remain sketchy, photographs show protesters attacking a small police jeep, holding five Carabinieri, or paramilitary police. Photos show the now-dead protester approaching the vehicle holding a fire extinguisher over his head while a police officer aims a gun at him from inside the vehicle. In the next picture, the activist is laying on the ground, dead, his head in a pool of blood. Ensuing pictures show the police backing up over the activist\'s body, then driving forward over it. How such an incident occurred in a safe zone is unclear. In preparations for the meeting, police expected crowds as large as those currently assembled, and the Italian government spent over one hundred million dollars preparing security, including hiring 20,000 police officers, placing surface-to-air missiles in the city, stationing frogmen to patrol the harbor, and bringing chemical and biological warfare experts to the city. Police may have anticipated the killing as violence has been rising at meetings to promote global capitalism, such as this one. As governments have taken dramatic efforts to isolate their meetings from public protest, people have increased their demands to be heard. In Quebec in April, police built a 4 kilometer-long concrete and chain-link fence barrier around the space where leaders discussed a hemispheric expansion to NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Fifty thousand peaceful protesters were denied access to leaders attending the meeting. Then, in June in Sweden, police shot three protesters with live ammunition, as twenty thousand peacefully protested a closed meeting of the European Union. US President George Bush attended that meeting. Finally, yesterday in Italy, police shot and killed a protester, as 100,000 demonstrated against the G8. Activists are demanding that powerful countries address human issues such as environmental and labor protection, poverty, and public health, and lessen the dictatorial power that wealthy nations wield over developing nations. Activists also demand that global governing bodies such as the World Trade Organization either be dismantled or reformed to comply with basic principles of freedom and democracy, such as open access to courts and meetings, and respect for nations\' rights to self-rule. News about continuing protests can be found at the Independent Media Center website, www.i-n-d-y-media.org.
Chainsaw Al
Last Tuesday, more charges were filed against a one-time corporate hero known for his ruthless mass-firings. Creditors of the now-bankrupt Sunbeam Corporation sued one of the corporation\'s funders in the wake of new information about a financial company\'s treatment of a bond sale and of the former CEO\'s past employment history. Beginning in 1996, the executive, known as Chainsaw Al Dunlap, led Sunbeam into bankruptcy. He was fired in 1998, and in May of this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Dunlap and another executive of fraud that cost investors billions of dollars. Thousands of workers lost their jobs, as well. The lawsuit charges that Morgan Stanley--now Morgan Stanley Dean Witter--of giving the green light for investors to buy $750 million in Sunbeam bonds, despite knowledge that the company was financially unsound. The lawsuit charges that Morgan Stanley was, quote, \"blinded by greed\" in its decision to support the sale of nearly a billion dollars in bonds. The Wall Street Journal also reported that a highly-priced executive placement company failed to uncover the fact that Dunlap was fired from two earlier executive jobs before he was hired by Sunbeam.
Fast Track Moves Toward Quick Vote
Fast-Track negotiating authority, a congressional bill designed to steam-roll labor and environmental rights in trade negotiations while protecting many corporate rights to property protection and profit, may be flagging, but nationwide fair trade supporters are encouraging urgent action. Republicans in congress are attempting to push a free trade bill through congress before the summer recess which begins in early August. Last week, trade publications reported that leaders in the house of representatives remain hopeful that they can pass the bill so quickly and with little public attention. While the congressional leaders said they were optimistic they could have a vote before the recess, a corporate lobbyist was more hopeful. Someone identified as a \"well-connected business lobbyist\" said that a bill will definitely be up for a vote before the august break. Supporters of FAIR trade say this means that congress could pass a bill that actually PREVENTS the president from negotiating on environmental or labor issues, and requires him to only negotiate protections for corporations and business interests. Reports late last week say that such a bill was being prepared in the Senate, indicating that the wheels are turning to pass another of President Bush\'s priority bills. FAIR trade activists are encouraging people to contact their legislators and encourage them to vote against any bill that does not give labor and environmental protection the same importance as copyright, patent, and profit protection for corporations. More information about labor\'s involvement in the struggle can be found at the AFL-CIO\'s website, www.a-f-l-c-i-o.org.
http://www.tradewatch.org/
http://www.aflcio.org/
Colombia Coke Case
The Steelworkers union and the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit against Coca-Cola and its latin american bottler in federal court on Friday, charging that, in Colombia, Coke uses paramilitary security forces to torture, kidnap, and murder trade union leaders. The Colombian trade union representing workers at Coke facilities in Colombia initiated the suit. The union has long maintained that Coke is among the most notorious employers in Colombia and that the company maintains open relations with the terrorist death squads as part of a program to intimidate trade union leaders. The union filed the charge on Colombian Independence Day to highlight the fact that Colombia is number one in the world for the number of union leaders murdered each year. Steelworkers president Leo Gerard noted that while the offenses occurred in a nation outside the Steelworkers\' jurisdiction, they are filing the case to show solidarity with embattled trade unions in Colombia. Gerard noted that, quote, \"we have a long way to go in making the global economy safe for trade unionists.\" unquote. How can a union file charges in the US for crimes committed in Colombia? The case is based on the Alien Tort Claims Act, passed in 1789 aimed at protecting the new nation\'s international reputation by allowing non-citizens to use federal courts to hold Americans accountable when they violate international law. The plaintiffs say that Coca-Cola and other defendants violated international law by maintaining a terror campaign against union leaders.
http://www.laborrights.org/
Interfaith Committee Supports Bunge Strikers
Local labor and religious leaders approved a resolution in support of striking workers at the Bunge-Lauhoff grain processing plant in Danville. The resolution was approved after meeting with Bob Isaac, a member of the union\'s bargaining team. The resolution reads as follows:
Be it Resolved that the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice of Champaign County calls upon managers at Bunge-Lauhoff to negotiate a fair agreement with PACE Local 6-0972, and to drop demands to cut real wages, weaken seniority rights, eliminate arbitration over wages, reduce job security, and restrict workers\' right to strike. We call on managers at Bunge-Lauhoff to negotiate a contract that maintains safe and fair working conditions, and that justly rewards workers for their labor.
About 200 workers have been on strike at Bunge-Lauhoff in Danville since May 16. The company brought in replacement workers to perform the strikers\' jobs in early July.
University of Illinois Concedes to Graduate Employees Organization
Graduate assistants at the University of Illinois learned again this week that being organized leads to work improvements, but that without input, the improvements can be dubious. The University of Illinois at Urbana announced that graduate employees would be paid for required training as teaching assistants, long a key demand of the Graduate Employees\' Organization, which is trying to organize graduate assistants at the university. Teaching assistants who receive training prior to Aug. 21, the start of their contract year, will be paid $41.11 per full day of training. The GEO greeted the announcement as a welcome first step, but noted that such a small sum amounts to less than minimum wage and said it indicates the university administration\'s unwillingness to discuss the real issues of graduate student working conditions.
Carpenters Hold Talks with AFL Leaders
Discussions to bring the Carpenters Union back into the AFL-CIO appear to be making some progress, after the Carpenters decided to quit the national labor federation in May of this year. On Monday last week, the AFL-CIO posted a joint statement from Carpenters\' president Doug McCarron and AFL president John Sweeney. The statement said that the two parties have met several times since the split, that a former labor secretary has participated in discussions, and that the conversations will continue. They did not reveal any subject matter from their conversations, although the statement closed saying that, quote, \"unity is our shared goal.\" Carpenters President Doug McCarron pulled the 700,000-member union out of the AFL-CIO, saying that organizing needed to have a higher priority. Critics of the decision fear that the Carpenters will refuse to honor work jurisdiction rules and begin taking work from other, sometimes higher-paid, unions.
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