STRIKES

[Davy King]

Huge crowds join French strikes

Huge crowds have taken to the streets in France to protest over the handling of the economic crisis, causing disruption to rail and air services."

(29th January 2009)


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7857435.stm


Please add any other examples of Strikes as they happen..... while we are trying to advertise the GENERAL WORLD STRIKE against Capitalism & money.

[michael dickinson]

Strikes in Britain. Foreign laborours imported to work at new refinery in Lincolnshire. Unemployed British laborours angry.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7859968.stm

[Davy King]

Yes & day on day, week on week, month on month, & year on year, there will be MORE & bigger & better STRIKES till Capitalism & its sordid MONEY system is swept into the stinking dustbin of what is called History (ie only the last 10,000 years of human existence on this planet). Well, let's hope!

[Davy King]

"Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets

France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.
It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks graver.
Exactly 20 years ago, in serial revolutionary rejoicing, they ditched communism to put their faith in a capitalism now in crisis and by which they feel betrayed. The result has been the biggest protests across the former communist bloc since the days of people power.
Europe's time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling. Revolt is in the air."

(The Guardian, 31st Jan 09)

[michael dickinson]

Here's a good way for spreading the idea of the 2012 Strike for a Moneyless World. I had the message printed on the back of photocopied 100 dollar bills today. I gave the 'money' to my surprised students in class this afternoon. When they turned it the notes and read message they thought it was a clever publicity idea.

WORLD STRIKE 2012

If you agree that the abolition of money would be a fine solution to most of our problems, and that we could create a much better system where EVERYTHING - food and drink, clothing and housing, water, heating, education, health-care and entertainment - shall be FREE for EVERYONE - why not join the World-Wide Strike on the opening day of the Olympic Games in 2012?

The Strike will begin the moment the symbolic Olympic flame is lit - the signal for all who support the abolition of money to stop work and demand a new fair world of true freedom and justice.

WE WANT A MONEYLESS WORLD

Pass it on.

So you could hand out the flyers in that counterfeit money form to commuters as they come off the ferries or the underground, or in the street or at malls. That would wake them up. Free money! But then they turn it over and see it's worthless. But then they read 'A moneyless world?' and the idea enters their brain....

That evening the commuter/shopper shows the banknote to his/her/wife/husband/friend and says "Someone gave me this today." And they laugh about the idea or ask 'would it be possible'?... And so they consider...

The banknote can be left lying around face-up anywhere in public and people are bound to pick it up.

[Viola Wilkins]

".... a growing number of economists say the unrest (n China) proves that it is not the exchange rate but years of sweatshop wages and income inequality in China that have distorted global competition and stifled domestic demand. The Far Eastern Economic Review headlined its latest issue “The coming crack-up of the China Model”.
(20 MILLION + wage slaves have lost their jobs in China)

Global Strike to defend workers' rights against bosses and governments

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=3f9c7cb88fa197294a3a35328a94b...

FACTBOX-Global financial crisis sparks unrest in Europe

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL4163275?sp=true
Feb 4 (Reuters) - Here are some details of protests linked to the global financial crisis:

* BRITAIN:
-- A decision by France's Total to bring in Italian and Portuguese workers to build a unit at the Lindsey oil refinery in eastern England has triggered a week of protests by thousands of energy workers at sites around Britain.

* BULGARIA:
-- Farmers blocked the sole Danube bridge link with Romania and rallied across Bulgaria on Wednesday. They are demanding the government set a minimum protective price for milk and stop imports of cheap substitutes, such as powdered milk.
-- Last month Bulgarians staged rallies to demand economic reforms in the face of the global slowdown, calling on the Socialist-led government to act or step down. One rally in Sofia turned into a riot.

* FRANCE:
-- Hundreds of thousands of strikers marched in French cities on Jan. 29 to demand pay rises and job protection. Some protesters clashed with police, but no major violence was reported. The one-day strike failed to paralyse the country and support from private sector workers appeared limited. Labour leaders hailed the action, which marked the first time France's eight union federations had joined forces against the government since President Nicolas Sarkozy took office in 2007.

* GERMANY:
-- Thousands of German public sector workers went on strike on Tuesday to press for more pay during the worst economic downturn in decades, in action that affected transport and schools across the country. Public transport ground to a halt in 10 cities across Bavaria, while schools and hospitals suffered walk-outs in northern Germany, service sector union Verdi said. Local authorities and schools were also affected in the east of the country, it added.

* GREECE:
-- Greek farmers had set up roadblocks across the country, protesting against low prices, but most were taken down last week after the government pledged 500 million euros ($652 million) in aid. Blockades continued on and off at the border with Bulgaria, and on Tuesday riot police clashed for a second day with farmers from Crete.
-- High youth unemployment was a main driver for rioting in Greece in December, initially sparked by the police shooting of a youth in an Athens neighbourhood. The protests forced a government reshuffle.

* ICELAND:
-- Prime Minister Geir Haarde resigned last week after a series of protests, some of which had turned violent. The first leader in the world to fall as a direct result of the credit crunch, he was replaced by Johanna Sigurdardottir, who heads a new centre-left coalition. The collapse of the country's fast-expanding banks under a weight of debt last year forced the country to take a $10 billion IMF-led rescue package.

* LATVIA:
-- Latvia's agriculture minister quit on Tuesday amid protests by farmers over falling incomes.
-- A 10,000-strong protest in Latvia on Jan. 16 descended into a riot. Government steps to cut wages, as part of an austerity plan to win international aid, have angered people.

* LITHUANIA:
-- Also on Jan. 16, police fired teargas to disperse demonstrators who pelted parliament with stones in protest at government cuts in social spending to offset an economic slowdown. Police said 80 people were detained and 20 injured. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said the violence would not stop an austerity plan launched after a slide in output and revenues.

* RUSSIA:
-- Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Moscow and the far east port of Vladivostok on Jan. 31 in a national day of protests over hardships caused by the financial crisis. On Sunday hundreds of demonstrators in Moscow called for Russia's leaders to resign.
-- Street rallies were held in almost every major city over the weekend. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party also drew thousands to rallies in support of government anti-crisis measures.
-- About 100 protesters were arrested in Vladivostok last month during protests against hikes in second-hand car import duties.
(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; editing by Mark Trevelyan)

[Viola Wilkins]

Mexican Truckers Declare Strike - Prensa Latina
Source: www.plenglish.com
Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina
5 million transport sector workers are to launch their national strike on February 16, 2009.
Solidarity with transport workers of Mexico!

[Viola Wilkins]

note the ugtg site is currently off line ?


General strike paralyses French Caribbean island Sunday, 08 February 2009
by Eddy Nedeljkovic

http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&...

France's Caribbean island of Guadeloupe had ground to a halt last week after two weeks of a general strike that shut down shops, schools and public transport and left its half-a-million residents facing food shortages. The strikers are warning of "social chaos" if the Paris government and local business leaders fail to meet their demands to lower taxes, hike salaries by 200 euros, around 255 US dollars, and slash petrol prices by 50 euro cents a litre.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, who last week saw a million people take to the streets of mainland France to protest at his handling of the economic crisis, has dispatched his minister for French overseas territories to the island. Speaking from the island's capital city Basse-Terre, Yves Jego told French radio Monday that a new welfare payment would be rolled out a year early in the tropical island, where it would benefit some 60,000 people. Jego said Sunday on arriving in Guadeloupe that he would stay as long as it took to bring an end to the strike organised by the Collective against Extreme Exploitation (LKP). "I am well aware that, after a fortnight of strikes, we must bring responses that satisfy the Collective," he told reporters on the island whose economy depends on tourism, agriculture and massive state subsidies. "I have no schedule for returning (to Paris)," he told reporters, adding that he would remain "as long as is needed" to resolve the "exceptional situation." Jego had said before leaving for the island that "one must not under-estimate the fears and the anger of our compatriots in Guadeloupe" and had already announced that social housing rents here would be frozen for 2009.

LKP, whose initials come from the words "Lyannaj kont pwofitasyon" in the French Creole spoken by most islanders, groups most of Guadeloupe's unions and political parties. Its leader Elie Domota welcomed Jego's arrival, saying that it appeared he "has understood that Guadeloupe is on the edge of explosion and social chaos." But the French Communist party said the government had no intention of giving in to the strikers' demands and was hoping for the movement to fall apart. The strike has shut down most shops here, with the few which remain open rapidly running out of goods on an island where almost everything is imported. Public transport and state services have also ground to a halt.

All the island's petrol stations have been closed in a parallel protest by gas station owners angry at the arrival of newcomers to the already tight fuel market.
Guadeloupe, like the neighbouring island of Martinique, is an overseas department of France and as such uses the euro as its currency and its residents are European Union citizens.

Most of its residents are the descendants of slaves brought from Africa to work on tobacco and sugar plantations, but it also has European and Asian minorities.

The strike there comes against a backdrop of growing social discord in mainland France. Last Thursday more than a million angry strikers marched across France to demand action to protect jobs and salaries from the global financial storm, and unions have promised more strikes unless Sarkozy does more to help consumers.

more

Collectif des 47 organisations
UGTG, Rue Paul Lacavé 97 110 Point-à-Pitre Guadeloupe
Fax : International : 00 335 90 89 08 70
France : 05 90 89 08 70
Email : [e-mail]

[Viola Wilkins]

"Nothing got did"
" the road to the White House, paved with lies"
lyrics from City That Care Forgot (New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina)
Dr. John and the Lower 911


Revolt continues in French Caribbean
Feb 16 2009

The leader of the general strike crippling Guadeloupe has accused the French government of preparing to kill protestors to bring an end to the stoppage on the French Caribbean island. "Today, given the number of gendarmes who have arrived in Guadeloupe armed to the teeth, the French state has chosen its natural path: to kill Gaudeloupeans as usual," Elie Domota said on Saturday. Domota is the leader of the Collective against Exploitation (LKP), which groups most of Guadeloupe's unions and political parties and which launched the general strike there on January 20th over low wages and the high cost of living.

http://libcom.org/news/revolt-continues-french-caribbean-16022009

The LKP is a collective of 48 cultural and social associations, left nationalist groups and trade unions, dominated by the UGTG (General Union of Guadeloupe Workers). The UGTG was set up as part of a nationalist upsurge in the aftermath of the brutal suppression in 1967 of a popular movement for wage rises, led by a strike of building workers, in which over 80 people were killed by the French police. It has become the main trade union in Guadeloupe, receiving 52 percent of the vote in the 2008 elections of representatives on the industrial tribunals.

Domota's accusation came as some supermarkets and petrol stations, which have been shut for more than three weeks, reopened as police stood by to protect the premises against potential protests by strikers on the tropical island.

"Every time there have been demonstrations in Guadeloupe to demand pay rises, the response of the state has been repression, notably in May 1967 in Pointe-a-Pitre where there were 100 deaths, building workers massacred by the gendarmes," Domota said.

On Saturday thousands of workers marched through the town of Le Moule chanting "Guadeloupe is ours, it's not theirs." They were referring to the "Bekes," the white minority which holds economic power on an island where most of the half million residents are descendants of African slaves.

Christiane Taubira, a French member of parliament for the overseas department of French Guiana on the South American continent, warned Sunday that the situation in Guadeloupe was "not far from social apartheid."

She said in an interview that "the leaders of the LKP are not anti-white racists. They are exposing a reality [...] a caste holds economic power and abuses it."

Most shops, cafes, banks, schools and government offices have been shut in Guadeloupe since the start of the strike. A massive demonstration of 25,000 out of a total population of 410,000 took place on January 24th in the capital Pointe-à-Pitre. On January 30th, 65,000 marched again in Pointe-à-Pitre.

The government has said it will not give in to strikers' demands for a monthly EUR200 increase in base salaries.

Meanwhile, the neighbouring French island of Martinique began its own general strike more than a week ago.
Twelve trade unions launched a general strike call Feb. 5 against the decrease in purchasing power, which has especially affected the 70,000 people on the island living below the poverty line. On Feb. 9, 25,000 marched there, in the capital Fort-de-France. Martinique’s population is 401,000.

[Davy King]

Fourth and last chapter of “The Joy of Revolution,” from Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb (Bureau of Public Secrets, 1997).

Chapter 3: Climaxes

Wildcats and sitdowns

Wildcat strikes do present interesting possibilities, especially if the strikers occupy their workplace. Not only does this make their position more secure (it prevents lockouts and scabbing, and the machines and products serve as hostages against repression), it brings everyone together, virtually guaranteeing collective self-management of the struggle and hinting at the idea of self-managing the whole society.
Once the usual operation has been stopped, everything takes on a different ambience. A drab workplace may be transfigured into an almost sacred space that is jealously guarded against the profane intrusion of bosses or police. An observer of the 1937 sitdown strike in Flint, Michigan, described the strikers as “children playing at a new and fascinating game. They had made a palace out of what had been their prison.” (Quoted in Sidney Fine’s Sit-Down: The General Motors Strike of 1936-1937.) Though the aim of the strike was simply to win the right to unionize, its organization was virtually councilist. During the six weeks that they lived in their factory (using car seats for beds and cars for closets) a general assembly of all 1200 workers met twice daily to determine policies regarding food, sanitation, information, education, complaints, communication, security, defense, sports and recreation, and to elect accountable and frequently rotated committees to implement them. There was even a Rumor Committee, whose purpose was to counteract disinformation by tracking down the source and checking the validity of every rumor. Outside the factory, strikers’ wives took care of rounding up food and organizing pickets, publicity, and liaison with workers in other cities. Some of the bolder ones organized a Women’s Emergency Brigade which had a contingency plan to form a buffer zone in case of a police attack on the factories. “If the police want to fire then they’ll just have to fire into us.”
Unfortunately, although workers retain a pivotal position in some crucial areas (utilities, communication, transportation), workers in many other sectors have less leverage than they used to. Multinational companies usually have large reserves and can wait it out or shift operations to other countries, while workers have a hard time holding out without wages coming in. Far from threatening anything essential, many present-day strikes are mere appeals to postpone shutting down obsolete industries that are losing money. Thus, while the strike remains the most basic worker tactic, workers must also devise other forms of on-the-job struggle and find ways to link up with struggles on other terrains.
 
Consumer strikes
Like worker strikes, consumer strikes (boycotts) depend on both the leverage they can exert and the support they can enlist. There are so many boycotts in favor of so many causes that, except for a few based on some glaringly clear moral issue, most of them fail. As is so often the case in social struggles, the most fruitful consumer strikes are those in which people are fighting directly for themselves, such as the early civil rights boycotts in the South or the “self-reduction” movements in Italy and elsewhere in which whole communities have decided to pay only a certain percentage of utility bills or mass transit fares. A rent strike is a particularly simple and powerful action, but it’s difficult to achieve the degree of unity necessary to get one started except among those who have nothing to lose; which is why the most exemplary challenges to the fetish of private property are being made by homeless squatters.
In what might be called reverse boycotts, people sometimes join in supporting some popular institution that is threatened. Raising money for a local school or library or alternative institution is usually fairly banal, but such movements occasionally generate a salutary public debate. In 1974 striking reporters took over a major South Korean newspaper and began publishing exposés of government lies and repression. In an effort to bankrupt the paper without having to openly suppress it, the government pressured all the advertisers to remove their ads from the paper. The public responded by buying thousands of individual ads, using their space for personal statements, poems, quotations from Tom Paine, etc. The “Freedom of Speech Support Column” soon filled several pages of each issue and circulation increased significantly before the paper was finally suppressed.
But consumer struggles are limited by the fact that consumers are at the receiving end of the economic cycle: they may exert a certain amount of pressure through protests or boycotts or riots, but they don’t control the mechanisms of production. In the above-mentioned Korean incident, for example, the public participation was only made possible by the workers’ takeover of the paper.
A particularly interesting and exemplary form of worker struggle is what is sometimes called a “social strike” or “giveaway strike,” in which people carry on with their jobs but in ways that prefigure a free social order: workers giving away goods they have produced, clerks undercharging customers, transportation workers letting everyone ride free. In February 1981 11,000 telephone workers occupied exchanges throughout British Columbia and carried on all phone services without charge for six days before being maneuvered out by their union. Besides winning many of their demands, they seem to have had a delightful time.(8) One can imagine ways of going further and becoming more selective, such as blocking business and government calls while letting personal calls go through free. Postal workers could do likewise with mail; transportation workers could continue to ship necessary goods while refusing to transport police or troops. . . .
But this type of strike would make no sense for that large majority of workers whose jobs serve no sensible purpose. (The best thing that such workers can do is to publicly denounce the absurdity of their own work, as some ad designers nicely did during May 1968.) Moreover, even useful work is often so parcelized that isolated groups of workers can implement few changes on their own. And even the small minority who happen to produce finished and salable products (as did the workers who in 1973 took over the bankrupt Lip watch factory in Besançon, France, and started running it for themselves) usually remain dependent on commercial financing and distribution networks. In the exceptional case where such workers make a go of it on their own, they simply become one more capitalist company; more often, their self-management innovations merely end up rationalizing the operation for the benefit of the owners. A “Strasbourg of the factories” might occur if workers finding themselves in a Lip-type situation use the facilities and publicity it gives them to go farther than the Lip workers (who were struggling simply to save their jobs) by calling on others to join them in superseding the whole system of commodity production and wage labor. But this is unlikely to happen until there is a sufficiently widespread movement to enlarge people’s perspectives and offset the risks — as in May 1968, when most of the factories of France were occupied:

http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/joyrev3.htm#Wildcats%20and%20sitdowns

[Viola Wilkins]

http://www.cnt-f.org/spip.php?article954

GENERAL STRIKE IN THE FRENCH ANTILLES

In the French Antilles (Guadeloupe and Martinique) a general strike has completely shut down economic activity on both islands since the 29th of January. The population of these islands are protesting against the cost of living in particular rising costs of essential foodstuffs and fuel. The following interview is aimed at explaining the current movement and the popular anger that launched it. The interviewee, Marcel, lives in Martinique and is a CNT activist.

contact

Collectif des 47 organisations
UGTG Rue Paul Lacavé 97 110 Point à Pitre Guadeloupe
Fax
International 00 335 90 89 08 70
France 05 90 89 08 70
Mail address : [e-mail]

more:
http://www.unionbook.org/pg/blog/brashley46/read/6580/the-assault-o...


http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Guadeloupe&...

[Viola Wilkins]

March 19 country-wide day of action in France is official. The negotiations does not seem to be successful.
All major unions are not happy about the wage negotiations.
Let's keep the solidarity flame on for the March 19 workers actions in France
* As you might know, the unlimited general strike in French colony, Guadeloupe is still going on.
Protests were escalated and at least one has been shot to dead.
more:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81118666040&ref=ts

*February 18 meeting between the Union leaders and the France Govt. The following is an automated translation from Google.
************************************
Reaction of unions after the Social Summit By XM on Thursday February 19 2009, 10:36 - News

* February 18
The unions will meet Monday evening to decide what form the day of 19 March 2009, but they seem to have agreed to continue to raise the pressure, according to their statements out of the meeting. ..

CFDT: "The action has led to a first change in government policy." "The few measures announced today, particularly for families, go in that direction. But at the situation of employees, the measures are insufficient." "As the action begins to pay, the CFDT believes it must continue to put pressure on the government and employers" to "go to a real change of direction." François Chérèque.

For the CGT, said the presidential decisions "series of accompanying measures to the social crisis." Recalling that the cost of around 2.6 billion euros, he said he was "forced to reduce this figure to the sum of 8 billion euros" to the companies with the announced abolition of the tax. Bernard Thibault

FP noted "some elements that move a little, on partial unemployment - even if" it is still inadequate "- the training and tax relief. "But it's much too short and we suffered a procedural bar on the minimum wage and wage negotiations branches," he said Mailly, criticizing the "refusal of a moratorium on the thirty miles public "whose deletion is scheduled this year." Jean Claude Mailly

CFTC held that if "the lines have moved a little," the account is not ", especially on salaries. "There have been some restructuring of the families but it is insufficient." Jacques Voisin

CFE-CGC is less critical. "There has been some progress on social dialogue, a consensus on the job, but there is still much to be done to improve compensation of partial unemployment," said. Bernard Van Crayenest

[michael dickinson]

"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms & the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists. As long as the workers keep their hands in their pockets, the capitalists cannot put theirs there. With passive resistance, with the workers absolutely refusing to move, lying absolutely silent, they are more powerful than all the weapons & instruments that the other side has for attack."


Joe Ettor, IWW union organizer. (died 1948) but his soul goes marching on!