By Harry Kelber
Germany's Largest Union Seeks Pay Boost as Strike Continues
The IG Metall engineering trade union this week demanded a 5 per cent pay increase for Germany's 3.4 million metal industry employees. The negotiations come as public sector workers continued their strike against longer working hours. The union says its wage demands are justified because wages for industrial workers rose only 1.2 percent last year, below the 2 per cent rate of inflation. IG Metall leaders warned that the wage talks, due to start Feb. 10, could lead to strike action if union and engineering industry representatives failed to reach an agreement by early April.
Thousands of rubbish collectors, hospital workers and kindergarten staff in the southern state of Baden-Würtenberg stopped work on Feb. 6 as leaders of Verdi, the public sector union, warned that the strike could last for weeks. The union is protesting plans by local authorities to raise working hours from 38.5 to 40 per week, a move that union leaders believe will lead to widespread job losses.
The strike, the first in 14 years, was approved by a 95% vote of union members. Workers in other states - Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Schleswig- Holstein, Saarland and Saxony - are set to vote this week whether to stage work stoppages that could begin as early as Feb. 13.
Chinese Workers Raise Pressure on Korean Auto Employers
The in-house union of Beijing Hyundai's only joint venture with Beijing Automobile Group has asked for a collective labor agreement. It would be the first for the company, which was founded in 2002, and the first with a major Korean company in China. The union comes under the China state controlled union umbrella, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).
Korean businesspeople in China worry that any collective agreement would trigger a domino effect that could boost their own labor costs and fuel labor disputes in their own businesses. A Beijing Hyundhai Motor staffer on Feb. 7 said the Chinese union requested a collective agreement to replace previous practice whereby the company struck a contract with each individual employee.
The request does not necessarily mean possible strike action, since China's 1982 revised constitution does not recognize collective union action. Strikes are technically illegal, though foreign companies have seen their share of them in recent years. The nationwide ACFTU has published a list of foreign and private firms without unions to turn up the heat on them.
Australian Workers Celebrate 150th Anniversary of 8-Hour Day
In 1856, stonemasons of Victoria, Australia, won an eight-hour working day, a world first in the struggle for improved working conditions and a fair split between work, rest and play. At the launch of celebrations of the 150th anniversary of this milestone, Victorian Women's Affairs and Arts Minister Mary Delahunty said that dividing work and family time was still the biggest challenge facing workers.
In 2002, as many as 1.7 million Australians worked 50 hours or more a week, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Working parents juggle long hours, and women are especially affected by the double shift. Fifty-six percent of Australian women are now in the work force, and 32 percent of them are caring for children.
"We're pleased to offer an eclectic range of events to both celebrate the historic achievements of stonemasons in 1856 and encourage examination of the contemporary struggle to control working hours and lead balanced lives," Delahunty said.
Canadian Public Employees May Strike Over Pension Issue
Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Toronto voted 94 percent in favor of a province-wide strike over current pension legislation in Ontario. The original purpose of Bill 206, a pension measure to revise the province's Municipal Employees Retirement System - which is to get its final reading this month - was to put municipalities in charge of their $40 billion pension plan.
But a major controversy arose over amendments that give police, firefighters and paramedics supplemental plans that allow them to retire earlier with full benefits. Municipalities say they'll have to raise property taxes to pay for these benefits.
"We're not talking about some little one day political strike. The schools won't open, my members won't let anyone in, and it's the same for municipal buildings," says Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario. Ryan says he'll take 120,000 workers on an illegal strike until the government says it will change the proposed pension legislation.
Belgian Workers Take 12 Days of Sick Leave Each Year
Belgian workers are, on average, sick 12 days a year, costing employers EUR 6.6 billion ($7.8 billion), the social management group, Securex, said. Securex, which offers social security services to 230,000 workers and 24,000 companies, based its analysis on absentee data from 2004.
The study yielded a national sick-leave percentage of 4.86 percent, meaning that for every 100 workdays, Belgian employees are absent, due to illness or accident, for 4.68 days. Slightly more than half of the nation's workers (54 percent) is never sick (or never calls in sick.)
Sick leave costs companies large sums of money, because during short periods of absence, workers still receive their pay. However, indirect costs can also mount up. If someone else has to take over an absent co-worker's duties, that can result in paid overtime or the need to hire a replacement.
Racist Boss Meets Wrath of Workers
Angry workers from the Blantyre Sports Club in Malawi on Feb. 8 put down their tools demanding the immediate removal of their manager, Bob Dudley, whom they accused of being a racist. This is the third time that the workers have had to strike in eight months that Dudley has been in office and each time have cited racism as the cause of their industrial action.
Dudley, said to be a white South African, is accused of calling black workers monkeys, an accusation he has denied every time the workers go on strike. Carrying placards that read "even monkeys want freedom in their country," the workers threatened to continue their the strike until Dudley , who has been shunning the media, goes back home for good.
Club director Dean Pinto, who came to address the workers, pleaded with them to go back to work and assured them that Dudley will not report for duties until the whole issue is addressed. The workers went back to work after Dudley drove off from the premises.
Our weekly “LaborTalk” and “World of Labor” columns, as well as our labor materials, can be viewed at www.laboreducator.org.
Harry Kelber’s e-mail address is hkelber@igc.org.
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