LABOR BRIEFS

Judge protects suing workers
Garment workers suing Donna Karan over alleged sweatshop conditions are not required to reveal their immigration status to lawyers for the trendy designer, a federal judge ruled June 11 in Manhattan.

Federal Court Judge Whitman Knapp expressed concern that such information could be used to intimidate the employees.

The Karan lawyers argued they were entitled to the information in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that undocumented workers who are not authorized to work in the US are not entitled to back pay under federal law.

Five Manhattan garment workers sued Karan’s company in 2000, charging they were cheated out of overtime and forced to endure sweatshop conditions. The owners of the factory, Calvin and Winnie Young Chen, are co-defendants in the case, which was brought by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. (NY Daily News)

Colombian workers strike over killing
In Bogota, Colombia’s USO oil workers’ union said on June 18 it was beginning a 48-hour strike in protest at the latest killing of one of its officials.

Cesar Blanco, a USO official in the city of Bucaramanga, was killed on his way home, state-owned oil company Ecopetrol said in a seperate news release. In a statement, USO demanded punishment for the killers and an end to crimes against activists.

USO last went on strike in late March, for two weeks, with little effect on production at the country’s main oil refineries. Crude oil output and exports in Latin America’s third-largest oil producer were unaffected by the protest, which was also in response to the killing of a union member. (Reuters)

Teamsters new role: spies for Bush
On June 21 Teamsters president James Hoffa said he would ask his 500,000 members to take part in a grass-roots “homeland security” effort looking for suspicious activity on the roads. Hoffa told reporters he had pitched the idea to Bush’s director of homeland security, Tom Ridge, by suggesting that the 500,000 truck drivers on the road at any one time could be the “eyes and ears of the homeland security office,” forming an important part of a “basic domestic intelligence service.”(The Scotsman)

Victory in Las Vegas reflects
Latinas’ power
Last month’s hotel workers’ contract victory represented a triumph for a growing force in the American labor movement: Hispanic women. The union, Culinary Local 226 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, forced casino operators to agree to its demands — although tourism still hasn’t recovered from the slowdown following last Sept. 11.

The victory reflects the power Hispanic women are gaining in labor across the country. Nationally, the number of working Hispanic female union members has risen by about 159,000 since 1992.

The growing number of Hispanic women in the work force makes them critical to the future of labor, which has seen its overall numbers decline during the past decade. Last year, about 93,000 women joined unions, and 42,000 of them were Hispanic. (AP)

Kenyan police attack striking
cane-cutters
Many cane-cutters who work on the Awendo Sugarbelt in Kenya were injured on June 12, when police in full riot gear attacked them for taking strike action. The strike began when cashiers at a pay center near Awendo town turned away hundreds of cane-cutters empty-handed, saying they had not been given enough money to pay all the workers. Production of sugar was halted for some hours at the Sony Sugar Factory and business halted in Awendo town when workers were confronted by the police, who accused workers of starting fires on several farms of Sony’s estate. (Grassroots Int’l News Association)

Air controllers strike in Europe
Flights were grounded and passengers stranded across Europe June 19 after air traffic controllers went on strike over a plan that would centralize the monitoring of Europe’s skies.

As controllers in France staged a full-day walkout, major carriers canceled 7,700 flights. Controllers in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Hungary stopped work for shorter periods.

Europe’s airspace is now managed by dozens of different control centers using various monitoring systems. Proponents of the EU’s “single sky” plan say it would reduce congestion and delays by bringing all air traffic controllers under centralized supervision. Unions say centralized control would result in job losses, and that pressure to reduce costs could also result in privatization of their services, which they say would increase safety risks. (AP)

Thousands of Italians strike
Thousands of Italians — from prosecutors and judges to metalworkers — walked off their jobs June 20 to protest government plans to reform the judiciary system and labor law. Italian prosecutors and judges staged their first strike in 11 years. In Rome courts, many judges showed up but refused to work, putting up signs on their offices to explain the strike. A separate, four-hour long walkout was held in the Italian regions of Lumbary and Campania.

The most highly charged aspect of the reform is a provision which would give parliament some power to set the agenda for prosecutors, a move magistrates claim would diminish judicial independence. (AP)