Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Greece: Union betrayal of truck driver’s strike sets stage for further attacks
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/gree-a03.shtml
Greece: Union betrayal of truck driver’s strike sets stage for further attacks
By Robert Stevens
3 August 2010
The Greek trade unions’ betrayal of a six-day nationwide strike by 33,000 truck drivers has set the stage for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) regime of Prime Minister George Papandreou to step up its offensive against the entire working class.
Late Sunday the truck drivers union, the Panhellenic Union of Commercial Land Transportations (PSXEM) succeeded in getting a narrow majority of workers to call off the strike. They voted an agreement accepting all the original demands of the social-democratic PASOK government.
The strike began on July 26, when drivers stopped work to protest a decision by the government to revoke their system of licensing trucks.
Under the existing system, truckers pay the state up to €100,000-200,000 for a license to own and run their trucks. The truck owners can then resell these licenses. Many drivers feared that the measures, aimed at the “liberalisation” of so-called “closed-shop” professions, would bankrupt them or even cost them their licenses. Liberalisation was one of the conditions set down by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as part of their €110 billion ($142 billion) bailout package for Greece.

Anti-Privatization Strike halts Greek rail services
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da60b740-74a4-11df-aed7-00144feabdc0.html
Strike halts Greek rail services
By by Kerin Hope in Athens
Published: June 10 2010 23:32 | Last updated: June 10 2010 23:32
A 24-hour strike by Greek rail workers on Thursday closed train services round the country, including a link from the centre of the capital to Athens international airport.

Workers at OSE, the lossmaking state-controlled railway organisation, staged the walk-out to protest against the government’s plan to sell 49 per cent of TrainOSE, the network operator, to a strategic investor who would also take over management.

Cross-border services to Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey were cancelled because of the strike.

The rail privatisation would launch a three-year programme of disposals agreed under the terms of Greece’s €110bn bail-out by the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund.

The government is under pressure from the European Union and IMF to restructure OSE as quickly as possible.

The group’s accumulated debts reached €9.5bn last year, accounting for more than 40 per cent of all debt owed by Greek state entities.

Korean KORAIL’s plans to terminate KRWU’s collective bargaining agreement revealed

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/393942.html

KORAIL’s plans to terminate KRWU’s collective bargaining agreement revealed
LDP Lawmaker Lee Jeong-hee shares documents that support her allegation that the termination was planned two months prior to the KORAIL strike

» Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) hold a demonstration to protest the labor policies of the Lee Myung-bak administration in front of the Industrial Bank branch located in Yeouido, Dec. 16.
An internal KORAIL document has been released that shows the termination of Korean Railway Workers’ Union (KRWU) collective bargaining agreement had been planned in advance in early October, some two months prior to the KORAIL strike.

On Wednesday,　Democratic Labor Party Lawmaker Lee Jeong-hee disclosed meeting materials composed at KORAIL’s personnel and labor office in early October. The document shows that KORAIL formulated a strategy to pressure the union with termination of its collective bargaining agreement. The materials also indicate that if KRWU decided to not accept KORAIL’s proposed changes to the collective bargaining agreement and took action after the conclusion of mediation efforts by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), the company had plans to inform the union it was terminating the collective bargaining agreement. This means that as long as the termination was an established fact unless the union yielded.

http://www.poboyfest.com/history

The History of the Po-Boy

Be sure to check out the panel discussions on po-boy and New Orleans history!

Poor boy sandwiches represent bedrock New Orleans. The shotgun house of New Orleans cuisine, Po-boys are familiar but satisfying. The sandwich is as diverse as the city it symbolizes. The crisp loaves have served as a culinary crossroads, encasing the most pedestrian and exotic of foods: shrimp, oyster, catfish, soft-shell crabs as well as French fries and ham and cheese. Comfort food in other cities seldom reaches such heights.

As with many culinary innovations, the poor boy has attracted many legends regarding its origins. However, documentary evidence confirms that your grandparents' stories about one particular restaurant were right.

Excerpt from Streetcar Stories documentary with info and interviews about the history of the Po-Boy [1min 45sec].
View longer excerpt covering the entire transit strike [13min 30sec]
Bennie and Clovis Martin left their Raceland, Louisiana, home in the Acadiana region in the mid-1910s for New Orleans. Both worked as streetcar conductors until they opened Martin Brothers' Coffee Stand and Restaurant in the French Market in 1922. The years they had spent working as streetcar operators and members of the street railway employees' union would eventually lead to their hole-in-the-wall coffee stand becoming the birthplace of the poor boy sandwich.

Oct 27, 2009 12:42 AM

Subject: Dockers strike in Peru
On Monday 10/26 13,000 dockers stopped work in Peru for 24 hours in every port in the country. They were protesting the privatization of the port of Paita. The dockers union believes that this is just the beginning of the privatization of all ports in Peru.
Of the 135 dockers who work in the Paita dock, over half have lost their jobs since privatization and wages have been cut from 70 soles (aprox. $25) to 50 soles (aprox $17) a day.
The head of the union stated; "President Alan Garcia is handing over the port to Chilean and Portugese capital."
The head of the Chamber of Commerce stated: "Everytime we privatize, are they going to strike because they don't like it?" He begged the dockers not to strike because thousands of workers who depend on imports and exports could lose their jobs. He affirmed "the doors of dialogue are always open."
Earl Gilman

10/1/2009 Strike Action By Japan Doro-Chiba To Protest Retaliation Against Union

Declaration of 38th Convention

September 28, 2009

Doro-Chiba (National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba)

We declare, here in the 38th regular convention, our decision on a policy for a fresh struggle on total examination of our practice in the past months of this year, a year of 30th anniversary of the founding of Doro-Chiba.

The whole world is precipitated in a global economic crisis. Administration of each country that has spent a tremendous amount of public fund to bail out corporations now claim that the depression has already reached its bottom and that the current crisis is overcome. It’s a downright lie. The world economy is rapidly contracting and a violent collapse of dollar is impending. The rate of unemployment is reaching 10% in US as well as in EU countries and further aggravation of job situation is anticipated. Japan is no exception. State finance is in bankruptcy with accumulated fiscal deficit surpassing \800 trillion ($8 trillion). Substantial jobless rate has reached 13% and working class is under a violent assault of wage cut. The number of people who committed suicide amounts 30,000 in each ten consecutive years. Education, medical service, pension and social security systems are collapsing.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/02/27/Italian_regime_targets_union_strike_power/UPI-78821235766297/

Italian regime targets transport union strike power
Published: Feb. 27, 2009 at 3:24 PM

ROME, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The Italian government is using new legislation to target unions' ability to call for transport labor strikes, a union leader said Friday.

Italian General Confederation of Labor leader Guglielmo Epifani said the new bill headed to parliament following Cabinet approval will allegedly weaken workers' rights and unions' strike powers, the Financial Times reported.

The trade union official said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was allegedly "taking a path which is dangerous to democracy and freedom and may harm relations between companies and workers."

The new legislation proposes that in order to call a strike in Italy's transport industry, at least 50 percent of all relevant workers must support such a measure.

Highway blockades, such as those recently enacted by Italian workers, would also be outlawed under the legislation.

'They will prevent the right to strike being exercised in such a way that citizens are held hostage, as has happened so

US Boss Labor Board Limits Political Strikes
http://labornotes.org/node/1921

Labor Board Limits Political Strikes

— Robert Schwartz

The massive immigrants rights marches in May 2006 may have been the largest political strike in U.S. history. Many were fired afterwards, and now the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel says that’s OK. Photo: Jim West
An overlooked order by the Labor Board’s lead lawyer this summer dealt a serious blow to the rights of U.S. workers to protest government policies.

On May Day 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers walked off their jobs to protest restrictive immigration legislation. Some were fired, and brought complaints to the board. Ronald Meisburg, the National Labor Relations Board general counsel, responded by posting a directive on “political advocacy” this July that enables bosses to immediately fire employees who participate in work stoppages of a political nature.

The directive, as yet apparently unnoticed by both unions and labor lawyers, cannot be appealed.

Traditionally, workers around the world have used two kinds of walkouts to achieve their goals, economic strikes over workplace issues and political strikes directed at government policies.

Transportation Workers General Strike Paralyses Busan Port
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200806/200806160012.html

Truckers' Strike Paralyzes Busan Port

Dark clouds gather over the Shinsundae and Gamman container terminals as a general strike by the Korean Transport Workers' Union paralyzed Busan Port on Sunday.

Major Disruption of Cargo Transport Feared
Transport Crisis Looms as Drivers Mull Strikes
Strikes Will Only Worsen Transport Woes

Busan Harbor, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's container cargoes, was virtually paralyzed when a nationwide strike by the Korean Transport Workers' Union went into its third day on Sunday. According to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, container storage at seven container terminals of Busan Harbor's North Port reached 86 percent on Sunday, far higher than the normal daily average of 72.1 percent.
At the Busan International Container Terminal Pier in Busan, which is used by Hanjin and Sebang shipping companies, storage reached 101.8 percent at one point that day. At the new and old Gamman container terminals at Busan Harbor it reached saturation point with 99.7 percent and 97.2 percent respectively. If the strike continues, it is feared that imports and exports will be severely disrupted at various workplaces early this week.

Korean KCWU Truckers Strike Cuts Container Moves 22%
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/293510.html

The volume of moving containers drops 22 percent due to KCWU’s strike
Strike of construction industry will add to the transportation paralysis

» Many containers are accumulating in a shipyard in Busan due to the strike of transportation laborers on June 15.
There is a sign that a strike by the Korea Cargo Workers Union would probably be lengthier than expected. What is worse, a union of construction equipment workers, a branch of the Korean Federation of Construction Industry Trade Union, will go on strike on June 16. The paralysis of cargo deliveries is expected to worsen as demand for transportation will rise early this week when most manufacturers resume production.

As the KCWU’s strike continued for a third day, the daily average volume of containers moved in or out of ports fell to one-fifth of normal operations. On the same day, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said, “The volume of containers moved in or out of major seaports or inland container terminals is 14,969 TEUs, twenty-foot equivalent units, or 22 percent of normal levels as of noon.” One TEU refers to a 20-foot shipping container. In the areas of Jecheon and Danyang, the volume of cement shipments plunged to less than 10 percent of normal levels.