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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Labor Headlines 3-16-02 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
Email: peterm (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
16 Mar 2002
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Headlines as broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays at 11 a.m. on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. GEO Sit-in Wins Negotiations, EU Barcelona Meeting Confronted by Global Justice Protesters, Plan Colombia and FTAA Protests Underway in Ecuador, Gas additive phase-out delayed, The Taco Bell Truth Tour, Union Chief Blasts Ryan on Threat of Job Cuts |
GEO
Graduate assistants at the University of Illinois claimed victory last week after taking over a top administration building. The number two campus officer began discussions with the protesters eight hours after graduate assistants entered and blocked access to the Swanlund Administration Building, which houses offices for approximately 100 top managerial staff. Shortly after five p.m. on Thursday, provost Richard Herman, accompanied by university lawyers, met with three GEO representatives, and over the course of three hours, a compromise was negotiated that allowed the protesters to leave the building and allowed managers back into their offices. The written agreement states that the parties will negotiate over who will be eligible to vote in a union election and that those negotiations will be completed by April 28. The provost's meeting with the GEO is the first time in the organization's ten-year history that the university has acknowledged the GEO as a legitimate organization. GEO spokespeople say that they will continue organizing toward a work stoppage to ensure progress in the upcoming talks. The university issued no statement regarding the developments.
http://www.shout.net/~geo/
http://www.ucimc.org/
EU Barcelona Meeting Confronted by Global Justice Protesters
Global justice protesters are in the streets of Barcelona, Spain today as the European Union closes a two-day meeting. Detailed reports about the protests are available from the Barcelona Independent Media Center. Government leaders say the EU is meeting to continue economic changes in former Soviet Bloc countries and expose more sectors of the economy to market forces. Energy deregulation is a major topic of the summit, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's agenda includes financial services deregulation, increased research and development, and deregulation in general. John Monks, leader of the British Trades Unions Congress, challenges the prime minister's priorities of liberalization, deregulation, and flexibility, arguing that those are simply code words for reducing workers' rights and making it easier to take away their jobs. Monks pointed out that over five percent of British workers are temps and that his European country's labor law does little to protect their interests. Workers' rights activists composed a large portion of the protesters in Barcelona.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,667865,00.html
http://www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/tuc-4584-f0.cfm?text=1&tucprint=1&
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/
Plan Colombia, FTAA Protests Underway in Ecuador
The Global Independent Media Center reports that a mobilization is underway in Ecuador to protest two of the largest neo-liberal programs in the western hemisphere, namely U.S. military incursions into Colombia and the proposed NAFTA expansion known as the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. The US government is strongly promoting both Plan Colombia and the FTAA, but it is being met with increasing resistance. From March 14 through the twentieth, people from more than 20 countries are converging in Quito, Ecuador, for the International Permanent Camp for Social Justice and the Dignity of People. Organizers say the objective of the camp is to show the connection between free trade agreements like FTAA and military intervention, like that which has come along with Plan Colombia. As part of the camp, protests and direct actions will be held this weekend at a central US military base for Plan Colombia, and in Lago Agrio, where an oil pipeline is located. Organizers say the oil pipeline is a symbol of the exploitation and environmental devastation that come with so-called "free trade" agreements. The camp will conclude with a major demonstration in Quito on March 19.
http://www.indymedia.org/
Gas additive phase-out delayed
Newspapers across the country are reporting that California has delayed the phase-out of the carcinogen and water contaminant MTBE from its gasoline, saying that the phase-out would increase gas prices in the state. MTBE was to be replaced by ethanol, a clean-gas additive made from corn and strongly promoted by midwestern farm groups and agribusiness corporations. California Governor Gray Davis announced the one-year delay in implementing the ban, yesterday. MTBE is also the focus of a billion-dollar lawsuit by the Canadian corporation that manufactures the toxic chemical. Under Chapter eleven of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Canadian corporation Methanex sued the United States, saying that California's attempt to protect the health of its citizens prevented them from earning a profit. Methanex demands that either California continue adding MTBE to their gasoline or pay the corporation nine hundred seventy million dollars. Governor Davis' delay on banning the additive endangers the health of California citizens, but postpones the NAFTA lawsuit.
The Taco Bell Truth Tour
Chanting, "Yo NO quiero Taco Bell," a campaign in support of workers for Taco Bell reached its apex last Monday when the Taco Bell Truth Tour arrived at the corporation's world headquarters. More than a thousand participants marched and rallied in support of tomato pickers in Florida's largest farm worker community, where workers are paid a piece rate for their labor. They must pick and haul four thousand pounds of tomatoes to make fifty dollars in a day. The Coalition of Immokalee (Im-ah-ka-LEE) Workers have been organizing since 1997, trying to raise wages that have been frozen since 1980. The Taco Bell Truth Tour, which has had strong support from student labor activists across the nation, resulted in a meeting with Taco Bell representatives last week. During the one and a half hour meeting, workers tried to persuade Taco Bell to become known for food that is, quote, "fast and fair", unquote. They also said that a boycott campaign against Taco Bell would continue to grow until the corporation takes responsibility for its relationship to farm worker poverty. Taco Bell recently repeated its stance that since it does not directly employ the Immokalee workers, it is not responsible for their working conditions.
http://www.indymedia.org/
Union Chief Blasts Ryan on Threat of Job Cuts
The state's budget director sent a letter to Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, this week saying that, unless the union agrees to concessions to help the state through the budget crisis by March 25, the state will lay off about 1000 workers on May 1. Gov. Ryan has been saying for months that, unless AFSCME agrees to renegotiate its contract, thousands of state employees will have to be laid off. AFSCME has offered to participate in a voluntary furlough plan as an alternative and has suggested other ways that savings could be achieved, but the union refuses to forego wage increases scheduled under its current contract. Mr. Bayer accused the governor of trying to balance the state's budget on the backs of state employees, pointing to a tax cut for the state's largest corporations that reduces revenues by $300 million. "No one else is getting a tax cut," Bayer said in response to the Governor's corporate tax break.
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu/lii/
http://www.afscme31.org/articleDetail.asp?objectID=320
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http://www.weftfm.org
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