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News :: Labor |
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Labor Headlines 12-21-02 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
(No verified email address) |
21 Dec 2002
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Headlines broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays at 11 a.m. on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. Jury Rules Wal-Mart Broke Wage Laws, Chinese Teachers Protest Over Wage Cut, Holiday Greetings: Plant Closes Abruptly, At Least 60 Jobless; UAW Preparing Complaint for Meridian Workers, BEATING THE BUSHES |
Jury Rules Wal-Mart Broke Wage Laws
The world's largest corporation has been found guilty of cheating its employees. A jury in Oregon ruled this week that Wal-Mart forced employees to work overtime without pay, in violation of state and federal laws that protect workers' rights. The jury deliberated for about four days before finding that the two hundred twenty billion dollar corporation increased its profits by systematically requiring employees to keep working after they clocked out. Supervisors were pressured to break the law, said Carolyn Thiebes a former Wal-Mart manager who told Bloomberg News that if her department missed performance goals, she'd be presented with a trophy of a donkey's hindquarters to mark her failure. Thiebes said she routinely subtracted ours from workers' paychecks at the direction of her supervisors. Wal-Mart's corporate office testified that they didn't know about the law violations, although more than four hundred Wal-Mart employees from 24 stores in Oregon joined the suit. Wal-Mart appears to be developing a pattern of employee abuse: In a class-action lawsuit in Colorado, Wal-Mart reportedly paid $50 million two years ago to settle a case involving 69,000 workers in that state. In another case, it agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a case covering 120 workers at one store, in Gallup, N.M. Wal-Mart employs 1.4 million people but zero of them enjoy union representation.
Chinese Teachers Protest Over Wage Cut
The China Labour Bulletin issued a press release last Saturday saying that retired teachers in the Jiangsu province took to the streets in protest of a 20% wage cut imposed by the central government. About 100 retired teachers staged a sit-in outside the city government demanding full payment. The government didn't respond, so the teachers took their protest to the streets. The wage cut came after the central government shifted responsibility for 20% of teachers' pay to local governments, but the new policy says that local governments need only pay if and when finances permit. A local official said that the local government simply didn't have the money to make up for the cut in state funds, so the teachers will have to absorb the pay cut. In China, teachers cannot organise their own trade unions, and thus have no channels to bargaining collectively with the central and local governments. The China Labour Bulletin takes the position that the administrative approach of unilaterally forcing new employment terms onto the teachers (and other civil servants) is unfair and unacceptable. The International Labour Organisation upholds the fundamental principles of free association and collective bargaining. The China Labour Bulletin demands that the Chinese government, as an ILO member, honours its obligation and negotiate with the teachers or their representatives on the terms of employment.
Holiday Greetings: Plant Closes Abruptly, At Least 60 Jobless
The Peoria Journal-Star reported that on Dec. 10, International Staple and Machine Co., which manufactures steel fasteners for shipping containers, announced it was immediately closing its plant in Herrin, Illinois. Sixty four people lost their jobs. A distribution center employing a few workers will remain open. The company is also closing a plant in North Carolina. A company spokesperson would not comment on International Staple's financial situation nor say whether dismissed workers would receive severance pay. The company blamed the closing on imports of cheap steel.
UAW Preparing Complaint for Meridian Workers
The Journal-Star also reported that United Auto Workers Local 1766, which represents workers at the Meridian Automotive Systems plant in Centralia, intends to file an unfair labor practice charge with the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board. The union claims that the company illegally fired 27 workers for going on strike on Dec. 13 over safety issues including overexposure to styrene used in making fiberglass components. A spokesperson for the company says that the union violated the collective bargaining agreement by striking without notice.
BEATING THE BUSHES
The AFL-CIO reports that the first group of Florida state employees who lost civil service protection in 2001 under Gov. Jeb Bush have won back rights at work by joining a union. With mail ballots counted Dec. 3, a majority of 2,730 workers in jobs ranging from administrative secretaries to vocational instructors, groundskeeping supervisors and master electricians voted to join Federation of Physicians and Dentists/AFSCME (FPD). The major issue in the campaign was workers' loss of the ability to fight arbitrary dismissal when they were reclassified into a category not covered by civil service protections. Union spokesman Jack Seddon commented, quote "This sends a clear message to the governor that people want to have their rights."
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Comments
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Re: Labor Headlines 12-21-02 |
by Hugo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Dec 2002
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Hmmm....why no headlines about the strike in Venezuela this week, hmmm???? I think labor is being oppressed! |
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Re: Labor Headlines 12-21-02 |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Dec 2002
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Actually, there was a featured discussion during the show about the situation in Venezuela. The labor situiation there is very complex and trying to reduce the story to "labor...being oppressed there" is, at best simplistic, and quite possibly represents a misleading assumption. |
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Re: Labor Headlines 12-21-02 |
by Hugo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Dec 2002
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Why yes! I see what you mean, now. Obviously we should not side with strikers like the Venezuelans. They are striking against a socialist government. And we only like labor when it's against capitalists. Now I get it. |
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Re: Labor Headlines 12-21-02 |
by Hugo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Dec 2002
Modified: 11:30:25 PM |
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Why yes! I see what you mean, now. Obviously we should not side with strikers like the Venezuelans. They are striking against a socialist government. And we only like labor when it's against capitalists. Now I get it. |
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What Kind Of Union Supports A Strike By Business? |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Dec 2002
Modified: 23 Dec 2002 |
What Kind Of Union Supports a Strike by Business?
You seem to want to over-simplify the situation in order to create a straw-man argument regarding the situation in Venezuela. By your reply, it's obvious that you ARE trying to be misleading, instead of being simply ignorant about the facts.
Here is the link to a column by a regular commentator on UC IMC, Mark Weisbrot, who has been visiting Venezuela while these events are happening. Mark is a former candidate for U.S. Congress who taught economics in the area before he moved on to national policy issues. This was the subject of the discussion on the Labor Hour, which you seem to have missed.
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/8612
This is a column of Marks from earlier this month:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/8487
Try a search here on the UC IMC site by "Venezuela" and you'll get lots more good info that is unsanitized by the dominant media.
Your idea that it is about _all_ the unions against the Chavez government is simply unsupported by the facts. I think what one has to ask is what sort of union takes the side of business and follows order from management? What kind of union works with the CIA to overthrow a democratically elected government?
Well we do know this from the earlier coup attempt:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/5210
After all, Chavez was elected and the Venezuelan constitution doesn't allow for an election to be called whenever the United States thinks it's time to have one. For comparison purposes, let's look at the last presidential election in THIS country. It was stolen under obviously fraudulent circumstances and there was hardly whimper from large sections of the U.S. labor movement (although many in labor did stand up and condemn this illicit result.) I personally feel that unions that call for illicit elections are the moral equivalent of those that don't condemn illicit elections results. And I would want neither type (which are really one and the same type, company unions) to represent me.
People can make up there own minds. Your claim that implies that all unions are opposed to Chavez and operating in the best interests of their members deserves to be tested against the facts, including the fact that the Chavez government is hardly socialist, although it is certainly far too independent for the tastes of George W. Bush and his oil cronies.
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Re: Labor Headlines 12-21-02 |
by Hugo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Dec 2002
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Ok, now I really see what you are saying. Chavez should not be kicked out, because the constitution says no elections are to be held for a while. While I've heard that he rewrote the constitution to say that, I'm sure that's something we can ignore. And yes, I can also see that if the unions that are striking are supported by the businessmen and the U.S., that must mean their claims are not legitimate at all. Especially not the ones about how Chavez's state control of the economy is running it into the ground. After all, as we have learned from Marx, it is the ruling economic elites who control the ideological superstructure. All they do is fork over the cash, and the mindless masses follow their every command. The workers may think that Chavez is destroying their country, but that's only because they've been bribed by the evil capitalists to think it. Yes, now I see. |
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You're Spreading Disinformation |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Dec 2002
Modified: 10:00:01 AM |
#1 The electoral provisions in the Venezuelan constitution allow a president to stand for office twice, just like in the U.S. It is my understanding that an election is due within the next year, as scheduled. The U.S. has no standing to demand early elections. Perhaps Bush should offer to resign after one term himself, if he expects Chavez to do the same?
#2 The oil industry is already state-owned. What's at issue is whether the profits stay in Venezuela to benefit the public. Currently, much of the profit ends up in the hands of management and multi-national oil companies.
Another important factor that you've neglected to mention is the issue of race. Most business and the leadership of several of the unions involved is controlled by a small, light-skinned minority who have traditionally controlled the economy. Chavez represents the mixed-race and black majority. For more info on provisions in Venezuela's constitution, see:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Notes%20on%20Venezuela's%20New%20Constitution |
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Corporate Media And The "National Strike" |
by via Global IMC Feature, etc
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Dec 2002
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After carrying out a more than three-week "national strike," or lock-out, and despite a helping hand from the Associated Press (http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article567.html) and other media agencies, the Venezuelan elite has so far failed (http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article565.html) to force President Chavez to resign. In implementing reforms which benefit primarily the poor, Chavez has inspired well-funded opposition by oil barons (http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/138635.php) and other business leaders, union bureaucrats (http://www.zmag.org/content/Labor/sipesaflven.cfm) and portions of the military, with the complicity of corporate media.
The Organization of American States voted (http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article566.html) overwhelmingly on December 16 to reject any future coup attempt in Venezuela or alteration of that nation's constitution. US religious and labor organizations and some members of Congress have asked (http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=42466&group=webcast) President Bush, who had previously called for unconstitutional (http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1550498.php) early elections, to support democracy by opposing any move to oust Chavez by force.
Earlier IMC Feature:
http://www.indymedia.org/archive/features/2002/12/2002-12.html#6401
Good interview and update:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1552703.php
Another good story (It seems to irritate "Hugo" when socialists get something right, though...):
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/vene-d19.shtml
Even the AP doesn't support the claims made by "Hugo":
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=224747&group=webcast
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