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| GERMANY: Clash with Unions Looms at VW
by David Gow, Guardian Unlimited (UK)
June 13th, 2006
Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker, is heading for a showdown with its 100,000-strong German workforce after trade unions rejected company proposals to increase the working week to 35 hours without extra pay late on Monday. |
| US: Polo Ralph Lauren Accused of Labor Violations
Bay City News Service
May 30th, 2006
Four former employees of Polo Ralph Lauren filed a lawsuit today in San Francisco Superior Court against the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, alleging that the company repeatedly violated the rights of its employees, according to Patrick Kitchin, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. |
| JORDAN: An Ugly Side of Free Trade - Sweatshops
by Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro, The New York Times
May 3rd, 2006
Workers from Bangladesh said they paid $1,000 to $3,000 to work in Jordan, but when they arrived, their passports were confiscated, restricting their ability to leave and tying them to jobs that often pay far less than promised and far less than the country's minimum wage. |
| ARGENTINA: Bolivian Community Divided Over Sweatshops
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press News Service
April 6th, 2006
The Buenos Aires city government's new offensive against slave labour has resulted in the closure of 30 clandestine textile sweatshops in the Argentine capital. But it has also caused divisions in the Bolivian immigrant community: some denounce the exploitative labour conditions, while others desperately want to keep their jobs, however precarious. |
| URUGUAY: Mixed Reactions to Truce in Pulp Mill War
by Gustavo González, Inter Press Service News Agency
March 11th, 2006
Activists who have been blocking international bridges between Argentina and Uruguay for the past month to protest the construction of two paper pulp factories on the Uruguayan side of a river separating the two countries expressed mixed reactions to news that the two governments had reached an agreement for a temporary freeze in construction on Saturday.
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| EL SALVADOR: Fraying of the Textile Industry
by Ginger Thompson, New York Times
March 25th, 2005
Employment in El Salvador's garment industry declined in 2004 for the first time in a decade. Thousands more jobs will be lost this year, threatening to drive up El Salvador's largest export to the United States: its people. |
| CAMBODIA: Police Open Fire to End Factory Protest
by Ek Madra, Reuters
February 22nd, 2005
Cambodian riot police fired assault rifles and used electric batons on Tuesday to break up a protest by 1,300 workers demanding redundancy payment from a garment factory that shut down in January. |
| AUSTRALIA: Unions Take Hardie Asbestos Protest to U.S.
by Barbara Adam, Bloomberg
September 15th, 2004
Australian labor unions will take their protest over James Hardie Industries NV's funding shortfall for asbestos victims to the U.S. today, seeking to extend their boycott of the company's building products to its largest market. |
| US: A Record Year for Shareholder Activism
by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Christian Science Monitor
June 28th, 2004
Question: What single force can get Tyco International to strive for cleaner emissions, inspire PepsiCo to study the impact of AIDS in developing nations, and even get Merck & Co. to declare its intentions to not manufacture an abortion pill? Answer: shareholders. |
| JAPAN: Former Mitsubishi Boss Arrested
BBC
June 10th, 2004
Japanese police have arrested a former head of Mitsubishi Motors and five other executives as part of a probe into the death of a truck driver. |
| LAUSD Adopts Anti-Sweatshop Code
Los Angeles Times
March 25th, 2004
The Los Angeles Unified School District has adopted one of the nation's most sweeping anti-sweatshop measures, requiring suppliers of everything from desks to scissors to disclose where and how those products were made and guarantee that workers making them earn a "non-poverty" wage. |
| China: Workers Demand Wages, Security
by Eva Cheng, Green Left Weekly
March 3rd, 2004
Some 2000 workers and their retired counterparts from the Tieshu textile factory in Suizhou, Hubei province, staged an angry protest on February 8 denouncing the now-defunct plants management for cheating workers of savings and benefits. They also accuse management of corruption. |
| Nike vs. Kasky: Corporations Are Not Persons
Truthout
June 11th, 2003
The case of Nike v. Kasky, currently before the Supreme Court, involves a fundamental question about corporations that unfortunately has not been raised by either the parties in the case or the media. |
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