Workers kick back at Reebok

July 29— An estimated 1,000 Indonesian employees of Reebok protested against the sporting apparel giant on Monday, July 29, accusing the company of slashing orders and cutting their salaries.

A Reuters report said the workers gathered outside the US Embassy in Jakarta shouting “Reebok the oppressor! Reebok the killer!” and set fire to huge cardboard replicas of Reebok sports shoes.

Organizers said Reebok had cut orders at its factory in Bandung, West Java, with scant warning in April.

“They said that... because of sinking demand... operations would be moved to Vietnam,” protest coordinator Rachman Jafar was quoted as saying.

“We want compensation... but Reebok doesn’t care about us. We’ve talked to Reebok but they’ve never kept their promises. They keep on lying to us,” he added.

The Reebok factory in Bandung is owned by Indonesian company PT Primarindo Asia Infrastructure (formerly known as Bintang Kharisma), which is under license to make footwear for the world’s number two sports-shoe seller.

Several foreign companies that rely on cheap Asian labor have moved out of Indonesia since the 1998 fall of ex-president Suharto because of rising costs, minimum wage increases and fears of social unrest.

The Suharto regime had ruled the labor sector with an iron fist. Workers who formed unions and staged protests risked being attacked, jailed or killed.

Reebok, which is based in Massachusetts, last week announced that its second quarter international sales had fallen 2% to $250.9 million from $256 million in the corresponding period in 2001, although US sales rose to $334 million from $315.4 million over the same period.

In February 2002, Indonesia’s most prominent women’s labor rights activist, Dita Indah Sari, rejected a $50,000 human rights award from Reebok in protest against the meager salaries the company pays its factory workers.

Sari, who was jailed by the Suharto regime, said the Indonesian factories used by Reebok don’t pay their workers a living wage.

Source: Laksamana.Net 

Honduran teachers fight for wage hike

Aug. 2— On July 30 police attacked and beat some 300 Honduran secondary school teachers who were demonstrating in front of the Education Secretariat in Tegucigalpa to demand better wages. Eight teachers were injured, including one with a broken nose, two with serious head wounds and another requiring surgery. The teachers fought back against police with the poles from their placards and with avocados taken from nearby vendors.

Another 200 teachers marched the same day in the city of El Progreso, ending with a protest in front of the municipal building to demand unpaid wages still owed to them. Also on July 30, some 100 teachers blocked access to the Palmerola US military base for about two hours while about 60 riot police observed from a distance. The Palmerola military base was built by the US in 1983 and served as the base for the US-sponsored contra rebels who fought a war of attrition against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Teachers had previously blocked the Toncontín international airport on July 25. US-sponsored contra rebels who fought a war of attrition against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

More than 50,000 Honduran secondary school teachers are demanding a 31 percent wage increase for 2002 and 2003. The government is offering only a 12 percent increase over the next two years. The teachers currently earn about $1.38 per class hour taught.

On July 31 some 500 teachers from Cortés, Yoro and Santa Bárbara marched in San Pedro Sula to press their wage demands. On Aug. 1 about 1,500 teachers marched in Tegucigalpa and briefly clashed with police. Teachers were planning a sit-down strike for Aug. 2.

Meanwhile, some 400 indigenous Hondurans from Lenca communities in La Paz, Intibucá and Lempira staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the government palace in Tegucigalpa to demand legal reforms and compliance with previous agreements. The Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) organized the protest.

Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas

S. Africa municipal workers win bitter strike

July 31— A bitter strike by the 120,000-strong South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) has ended in victory. The strikers returned to work on July 22.

SAMWU members had endured sustained police violence and state repression. One worker was shot dead, and two seriously wounded, when a municipal official from the Louis Trichardt council opened fire on a SAMWU mass meeting on July 15.

During the course of the struggle, hundreds of strikers were detained for participating in “illegal” pickets or gatherings.

On July 12, South African President Thabo Mbeki, writing in the ANC Today journal, condemned SAMWU for disrupting the July 9 meeting of the newly formed African Union. “Prompted and encouraged by their leaders, [SAMWU members] sought to misuse and degrade the songs, slogans and ... methods of our movement for national liberation at a critical moment in Africa’s continuing liberation struggle,” Mbeki stated. The South African Communist Party’s image was tarnished by its national chairperson Charles Nqakula, who is also police minister in the national African National Congress government.

SAMWU members began their first national strike in seven years on July 2. They were demanding that municipal workers’ minimum monthly wage be increased by R300 to R2200 (A$367) and that all municipal workers receive a 10% wage increase.

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA), dominated by the African National Congress (ANC), refused to increase the minimum wage and attempted to impose a below-inflation 8% increase and a three-year agreement.

On July 19, SALGA buckled and agreed to a revised set of demands. They included: a R200 increase in the minimum wage to R2100; an immediate 9% increase for workers earning below R3200 (most SAMWU members) and 8% for all others; an increase equal to the inflation rate plus 1% in 2003; and an increase equal to the inflation rate plus 1.5% in 2004.

Source: Green Left Weekly

LABOR BRIEFS

Unions oppose Bush on federal
labor rights
At a Capitol Hill news conference July 31, firefighters joined union members in rejecting President Bush’s contention that he needs to limit labor rights to have an efficient Department of Homeland Security.

Firefighter Mike Staples, who responded to the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, said: “One of the implications I have heard is that somehow union affiliation interferes with an employee’s ability to do their job.That really brings into question the character of union employees everywhere, and quite frankly, that is an insult to union employees everywhere.”

The Republican-led House of Representatives last week passed a homeland security bill that would give Bush the flexibility he demands in managing the proposed agency’s 170,000 employees.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman is chief author of the Democrat-led Senate’s version of the legislation, which would provide what the White House calls unacceptable union and civil service safeguards.

About 50,000 of the 170,000 workers targeted for transfer to the new department are union members. Nonunion workers at the new department would have civil service protections that the president also wants to limit. (Reuters)

Wal-Mart workers in Germany strike
More than a thousand Wal-Mart workers in Germany went on strike July 26 and 27, to press for a collective agreement. The US retail multinational has refused to sign an agreement with UNI Commerce affiliate ver.di, or to join an employers’ association, which would bring it into an industry agreement.

“We will continue as long as it takes until Wal-Mart signs a recognition agreement,” said ver.di vice president Margret Mönig-Raane at a strike meeting in Wilhelmshaven.

Wal-Mart has not been successful in Germany. It has lost hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and is now closing 6 of its 95 German hypermarkets. In the United States, the Arkansas-based retailer is aggressively anti-union, building its profitability on low wages and poor benefits for its one million workers. (www.union-network.org)