SECOND QUARTER MAY-AUG. 1995 INTERNATIONAL PT. 1
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ARGENTINA
ers of the Radical Party, which controls provincial government. Three hundred workers were arrested in the disturbances. Similar riots broke out a few days earlier in Tucuman province, where teachers and hospital workers went on strike.
JULY 5: State employees in Cordoba stage a 24 hour general strike to protest government austerity measures, which have led to non-payment of wages for the past two months.
ARUBA
AUSTRALIA
ased on workplace stress, limit the period certain categories of injured workers can claim benefits to 12 months and loosen employer requirements to re-hire disabled workers.
EARLY APRIL: Workers at BTR Nylex (car components) ended a week-long strike winning a 7% wage increase over the next 21 months. The strike settlement averted the imminent lay-off of 16,000 workers in the auto industry due to a shortage of parts.
MAY 5: Miners at MIM Holding Co. in Mt. Isa (northwest Australia), continue a
until May 23 when they returned to work after having successfully backed-down the company's hard line. During the two week strike, mass pickets were held, electricity was
d as an "uneasy truce" which ended dispute.
MAY 18: Maritime workers at the Port of Newcastle voted to strike indefinitely in a dispute over increased benefits.
JUNE 2: Stevedores, protesting use of non-union contracting labor which they claimed was a thinly-veiled attempt to undermine the union, struck the Fremantle docks halting all shipments.
JUNE 4: Western Australian dockworkers end strike at Alcoa of Australia, Ltd. which had halted all alumina shipping.
n this country for about 70 years is under assault. This was a form of court arbitration that imposed a minimum award governing wages and conditions which was largely accepted. Traditionally brief strikes took place, there were negotiations which if succ
bargaining power."
BAHRAIN
part of this government-sponsored counter-insurgency campaign.
Bahrain is a starkly segregated country, with luxurious compounds for thousands of Westerners and the local ruling class, (all of this off-limits to local inhabitants) while
the rest of the country lives in mud huts and wretched poverty.
BANGLADESH
BOLIVIA
BRAZIL
y 10, the oil workers union threatens to have all 50,000
members collectively resign their posts. On May 24, army troops and tanks are sent into four major oil refineries to break strike. In face of this repression, strike ended June 2
with the government refusing all negotiations.
government's "Plan Real" economic program.
JUNE 12: Six thousand longshoremen strike Santos harbor (the largest in South America) demanding a 29% increase in their salaries (which average about $230 per month). Port workers in Rio De Janiero also simultaneously went on strike for two
days, winning a 32.8% increase in inflation induced wage adjustments.
CANADA
JUNE 17: Gold miners at Hemlo Gold Mines strike to protest lack of progress in contract talks.
CHINA
LATE MARCH: Hundreds of people protesting the demolition of their homes to make way for commercial development blocked Shanghai's "Golden Mile" shopping district.
COLOMBIA
MAY 25: Several hundred thousand teachers call off a 16 day walkout after winning 8% pay increase and an assurance that strikers will not be penalized by the government.
COSTA RICA
DENMARK
MAY: Organized in "commando action" teams, two hundred
demonstrators from Copenhagen vandalized 21 buses in the city
of Esbjerg to protest plans to privatize public transport in
that city, leading to 50 arrests. According to "The European"
May 12-18th, "activists barricaded the entrance of the garage
with freight pallets from a lorry before smashing the vehicle
windows with baseball bats and rocks."
Also in May, almost 250,000 workers nationwide staged an unofficial and illegal strike in solidarity with the Esbjerg bus drivers - the most significant job action since
the 1985 nationwide general strike.
JUNE 8: A selective strike by Scandinavian Airlines Systems
EL SALVADOR
JULY 17: Police attacked a demonstration of state water company workers with rubber bullets and tear gas on the second day of a walkout protesting the state-owned water company's refusal to honor a contract signed last spring.
FRANCE
MAY: Postal workers at the Nice mail sorting facility return to work after a month long occupation, having several times fought off riot police attempting to seize back facility.
MAY 26: Arab and Jewish residents of a working class neighborhood in Paris joined together to street fight with police after the police allegedly made racist statements attacking both groups.
MAY 30: One day strike by hundreds of thousands public sector workers protesting government attempts to privatize state-owned telecommunications, energy and transport companies.
MAY 31: Tens of thousands of rail workers demonstrate in Paris to protest proposed break-up of the state owned SNCF; a step widely viewed as the beginning step toward
privatization.
JUNE 8: Two days of rioting by young people wearing ski masks in Paris suburb of Noisy-Le-Grand. Three schools and a gymnasium were set on fire, along with several cars. Riots erupted in response to the death of a young Moroccan who died crashing a
stolen motorcycle while fleeing police on June 7.
JULY 20: Air France flight attendants strike for 48 hours in protest of company attempts to increase working hours.
disturbances.
On the weekend of July 22, thirty youths fought police in the suburb of Les Mureaux (east of Paris) demanding the release of a man arrested by police.
GHANA
MAY 11: Five people die in street clashes protesting government austerity measures imposed at the order of the IMF as government troops open fire on a march of ten thousand in Accra.
GREECE
MAY 1: Fifteen thousand workers march in Athens on May Day demanding an end to government austerity measures and a shorter work week.
JUNE 29: Industrial action by seamen and airport workers strand an estimated hundred thousand tourists and travelers across the country.
LATE JULY: A firefighters strike sweeps throughout the country as fireman refuse to put out brush fires that erupted in posh suburban districts.
ICELAND
INDIA
to step up actions unless equity is achieved.
JUNE 21: A strike by 60 pilots at the ports of Calcutta and Haldia strands 11 oil tankers and 6 general cargo vessels. Pilots are demanding immediate wage hikes.
IRAN
JULY 22: Auto workers at the state-run Khavar factory, which produces Mercedes under contract with Daimler-Benz stage a sit-down strike to protest elimination of free lunches and other benefits.
IRELAND
JUNE 19: Workers at Dunnes Stores, a major retail and supermarket chain and the country's largest employer begin a strike. Issues: terms and conditions of Sunday working
ITALY
, transport workers in southern Italy staged a similar strike to that of the 11th.
JUNE 15: A sudden wildcat strike by Alitalia pilots shuts down the entire airline - part of a continuing series of job actions to protest company restructuring plans. On July 5,
about a fifth of the airline's air and ground staff (represented by an independent union, Sulta) struck for 24 hours in a separate job action at Alitalia.
IVORY COAST
EARLY APRIL: The government is faced with widespread discontent in response to a 50% devaluation of the cfa franc which took place in January 1994. Officially, inflation
jumped 32.5 % in the past year although non-governmental sources say 50% is a much more accurate figure. In April, financial sector workers shut down business services in Abidjan in a failed strike over salary increases.
JAPAN
LEBANON
ties. The government had imposed the tax hikes pleading that it needed money to pay a 20% salary increase for state workers. Strike action was called off before the 19th after government promised to open negotiations with trade union officials.
MEXICO
MAY 1: More than 100,000 workers (mostly members of smaller independent unions not affiliated with the government controlled Confederation of Mexican Workers) march
in Mexico City to protest government austerity measures.
MAY 3: Members of SUTAUR 100, the bus drivers union in Mexico City which was forcibly dissolved by the government and riot police two weeks prior hold massive protests. Since union was repressed, the fired bus drivers have held many militant
protests through the streets of Mexico City, fought with police and set scab buses on fire. Several union leaders remain in jail on charges of raising money for the Zapatistas.
MAY 8: Mexican truckers block several heavily traveled international bridges leading to the U.S. protesting harassment by U.S. border officials
JULY 12: Thousands of peasants march through the streets of Acapulco in front of fancy high-rise hotels to protest the murder of 17 peasants by the state of Guerrero on June 28.
MONGOLIA
MAY 27: Teachers demonstrate in Ulan Bator demanding improvements in school conditions and tripling of salaries. This is one of the first organized actions by workers in this isolated and landlocked country which has been spared protests so far.
MOROCCO
NEW ZEALAND
JUNE 6: Workers at the Enza Products Ltd. (processors of fruit juice) located in South Auckland walk out and set up picket lines, demanding a 4% pay hike, increased pay for
shift differential and other improvements in working conditions.
MID-JUNE: Poultry workers at Tegel Foods Ltd. in Christchurch and Te Horo have been holding a series of 24 hour rolling strikes to protest company attacks on working conditions.
NICARAGUA
MAY 8: Agricultural and transport workers begin a staggered strike to protest food shortages, unemployment and declining wages: a result of government austerity policies.
NORWAY
PAKISTAN
MAY 27: The Economist reported 20 people died during a Karachi strike (details on strike unknown)
PALESTINE
al hours. The strike was not even covered by the local press, all sympathetic to the PLO-controlled Palestinian National Authority (PNA). According to one observer, over 50% of the ministers in the PNA are "patriotic" landowners and employers.
lf-rule agreement continues. In light of a lowered demand for unskilled labor, Israel has instead preferred to import workers from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, who are considered more "docile" and will work for even lower wages than Palestinians.
ay it is: a low-wage and unorganized workforce, an underclass" (Middle East Report May-August '95)
PANAMA
MAY 23: Twenty-four hour nationwide general strike sweeps country over proposed sweeping changes on labor code introduced by the government. Riot police deployed against union demonstrators in Panama City.
POLAND
MAY 19: On strike since May 8th, tractor factory workers at the Ursus complex set fire to railway tracks and halt all trains coming into Warsaw. Workers are demanding a pay
increase of nearly 30% to keep up with an annual inflation rate running at 30%.
MAY 27: In what was called the worst violence since the end of the Stalinist regime, thousands of miners and steel workers fought riot police in Warsaw as a Solidarity-
ROMANIA
MARCH: Several hundred miners occupied the pits in the western coalfield of Tirgu Jiu, demanding the firing of state managers.
RUSSIA
the same vicinity and fisherman and
fish-processing workers began hunger-strikes of their own. On the island of Sakhalin (off Pacific coast, site of a major coal mine), miners walked out to demand back wages owed since January after staging a week-long hunger strike.
JUNE 13: Over two thousand aerospace workers at the Vektor complex in Yekaterinburg blocked city streets, bringing all traffic to a halt in a protest over non-payment of back wages owed.
JUNE 27: Miners at the largest coal mine in the republic of Khakassia stage a week-long walk-out demanding payment of back wages owed since March.
JULY 4: The Ministry of Labor issued a report on strike activity which shows nearly 859 official strikes have taken place since last year; more than twice the figures of the
same period in 1994. Besides the official strikes, another 4,000 cases of other labor disputes (demonstrations, occupations and picket lines) have occurred. Seventy per cent
of the official strikes have taken place among teachers, who are among the lowest paid workers, followed by industry and mining (23%); the latter disputes mostly strikes over back pay.
ST. LUCIA
to strike that if strike took place, St.Lucia would be driven into "the chill embrace of the IMF."
SOUTH AFRICA
MAY: Port workers at the state-run Portnet struck nationwide for five days in protest of breakdowns in contract negotiations.
JUNE 6: Twenty thousand workers march through Johannesburg demanding increased workers rights protection in legislation being drafted by Mandela government.
JUNE 13: Security guards open fire with bird shot pellets on strikers at a mill in eastern Transvaal province after strikers attempted to break through company security fence
and occupy the mill.
JUNE 19: More than a million workers went on a half-day strike throughout the country to demand more pro-worker commitments in proposed Labor Relations Bill.
JULY 4: Four thousand construction workers at the Ausaf aluminum smelter expansion project walk out in a solidarity dispute over no-strike bonuses.
SOUTH KOREA
MAY 19: Thousands of riot police storm Hyundai plant in Ulsan which had been occupied for a week by workers protesting continued harassment of union militants arresting three hundred workers.
MID-MAY: Workers at Korea Telecom begin a sit-in at the company in preparation for a threatened national strike of all Telecom workers, especially if government uses riot
police to break-up these sit-ins held to pressure management. Issues: pay increases,
rejection of government-set wage increase guidelines and Korea Telecom's
JUNE 10: Thousands of workers and students march through Seoul in support of arrested Telecom union leaders.
JUNE 23: Twelve hundred workers walk off the job at Korea Power Engineering Co. (KOPEC), a state-owned monopoly demanding a 41.9% wage increase. Company had initialy offered a 3% hike, which it increased to 17.4 after workers rejected the earlier offer.
ecutive board meeting by sneaking into ceiling air conditioning ducts and then popping out commando-style and chaotically disrupting the meeting by shouting their demands. they were arrested, then released and no charges were filed until May when the uni
any of these news stories and my memory of the events imprecise (while I visited the vigils and strike actions at Korea Telecom)
o work as much as 14 hours a day, 6 days a week for abysmally low wages. A Filipino told me he makes $600 per month but a Nepalese working at his factory only made $250 per month.
SPAIN
EARLY MAY: A national strike by doctors demanding higher pay shuts down clinics and other non-essential medical services throughout the country. Strike continues until June 26, when doctors agree to government pay raise.
fishing boats are forced to
stay idle until negotiations are completed.
JULY 20: Ten thousand workers at INI, the state-owned shipyards hold a one day strike to protest a restructuring plan that would cut 5,200 jobs.
SWEDEN
MAY 29: Several thousand retail workers, ranging from sales people to truck drivers, strike over 100 firms demanding a 7.5 % wage hike. In retaliation, firms to lock out an
additional ten thousand workers.
JUNE 12: The second pilot's strike in four days hits Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) forcing cancellation of 800 SAS flights. Pilots are demanding a 6% pay increase.
TURKEY
d political party in the governing coalition to come out in favor of the worker's demands - a serious set-back for privatization.
UNITED KINGDOM
MID-MAY: An unofficial strike by 27 electricians and pipe fitters takes place at Laing's building site on the campus of Manchester Metropolitan University. Walk-out occurred after management fired 2 workers for "not working hard enough."
MAY 27: Fighting compulsory redundancies, thirty-seven workers at Mainland Car Deliveries in Didcot, Oxfordshire go on strike.
END OF MAY: The entire work force (750) of Nigg oil rig building yard on Cromarty Firth in Scotland walk out in protest of company redundancy plans.
JUNE: Library workers in Sheffield strike over the council's attempt to cut Saturday bonus pay. Strike ends eight weeks later with the Sheffield council giving in to striker's
demands,
JUNE 9: Riots in predominately Asian Manningham area of Bradford sparked by police brutality. BMW's parked in a showroom a few hundred yards away from Toller Lane police station were torched.
EARLY JULY: A two week sit-in by local youths and community members at the Moat community center in Leichester is held to protest the local council's attempts to shut the center down.
JULY 9: Hundreds of demonstrators smashed shop windows and burnt a police car in protests over smuggling crackdown in British-owned island of Gibraltar.
JULY 10: Throwing molotov cocktails and setting cars on fire, several hundred youths rioted in Leeds to protest a local pub being used as a police surveillance station (the pub was burnt down).
VENEZUELA
MAY 12: Oil workers strike refineries in Zulia state (producers of half the country's oil output.)
EARLY JUNE: Tens of thousands of transport workers in the capital city of Caracas stage a half-day strike to protest government inaction on a crime wave directed against
these workers. Since January, 46 bus/cab drivers have been murdered and an average of 50 more suffer armed attacks everyday: a consequence of rapidly falling living standards
and the worse economic crisis in the country's history.
YEMEN
APRIL 30: University professors struck colleges in Sanaa and Aden demanding pay increases that would place Yemeni professors on same level as foreign teachers in the
university system.
ZAIRE
JULY: Scores of state workers, victims of a structural adjustment program which has seen 130,000 jobs lost in both the public and private sector, demonstrate in front of the
State House to protest the non-receipt of promised severance pay. In response, the government jails all the protesters