Condemn The Arrest Of Mine Workers In Sukinda Valley In Odisha

Press Release | June 23, 2017

Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation strongly condemns the arrest of three mine workers Rabi Murmu, Abhimanyu Mohanto and Ramesh Majhi on June 12, 2017 on false and fabricated charges of conspiring to wage a war against the Indian state and inciting violence. We understand this arrest and the imposition of severe charges as an attempt by the ruling BJD and BC Mohanty & Sons, the company operating the mine in Sukinda valley to intimidate and prevent the mine workers from forming a trade union and challenging human rights violations resulting from mass tribal displacement in the region.

Rabi Murmu is the President and Abhimanyu Mohanto is the General Secretary of the Aancholiko Khoni Khadaan Mazdoor Sangh, a union that has been organizing in the pursuit of regularizing the wages of mine workers as well as their registration in the B Register. The union has also been drawing attention to rights violations of persons displaced by the mines, with an eruption in mining licenses over the past few years in Sukinda valley, which is the chromite-rich belt of Odisha in Jajpur district. Odisha has 98% of the total chromite reserve in India, 97% of which is found in the Sukinda valley. Currently, there are 14 chromite mines in the Sukinda valley of which 12 or 13 are in operation.

US: House passes bill that forces workers to work without pay

by MARK GRUENBERG

People’s World | May 11, 2017

HR 1180 legalizes a practice that employers like Walmart have been sanctioned for in the past. AP

WASHINGTON – By a 229-197 party-line vote, the House has approved a bill, HR 1180, that will give employers the power to decide whether or not they will pay for overtime work.

The Working Families Flexibility Act “is not good for working families at all. It changes our nearly 80-year system of overtime that discourages employers from overworking us,” Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers said in his blog.

Under the bill’s provisions, employers could force workers to accept compensation time rather than pay them for work done in excess of 40 hours.

From: Report of the Second Annual Session of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada

Held in Cleveland, Ohio

November 21, 22, 23, 24, 1882

Third Day – Afternoon Session

Eight-Hour Work Day

The eight-hour declaration of the Chicago Trades Assembly being next in order that document was read by the Secretary as follows:

Resisters fight for $15 at Illinois state capital

by EARCHIEL JOHNSON

People’s World | April 28, 2017

Earchiel Johnson/PW

SPRINGFIELD, Il. – On Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered for a rally at the state capital to lobby the Illinois House of Representatives to raise the minimum wage to $15. The action was led by a multi-generational coalition consisting of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans(IL-ARA), Steel Workers Organizing Active Retirees, Nabisco 600 and many others.

Raising the minimum wage would impact the wages of a diverse swath of industries including fast food and home care workers.  In Chicago, the current minimum wage is $10.50 and will steadily increase until 2019 until it reaches $13 an hour. However, the rest of the state’s workers labor under a minimum wage of only $8.25 an hour.

North Carolina measure aims to get rid of unions

by LARRY RUBIN AND MARK GRUENBERG

People’s World | April 28, 2014

Darron Cummings/AP

The right wingers who have captured North Carolina’s legislature are pushing to make the state’s anti-union, so-called “right to work” (RTW), law a part of the state constitution, which would make it more difficult to get rid of in the future.

North Carolina is just 3 percent unionized, the second lowest union density state in the nation. The state with the lowest percentage of union workers is South Carolina.

More Than 1000 Miners Strike in Peru over Wages and Conditions

telesur | 11 March, 2017

More than 1,000 miners at a U.S.-owned copper mine in southern Peru put down their tools on Friday morning over pay disputes, mirroring ongoing strikes in neighboring Chile.

The indefinite strike at the Cerro Verde mine, Peru’s largest copper mine, started at at 7:30 a.m. local time. Around 1,200 miners are involved in the action which has halted 95 percent of the site’s production, equivalent to about 40,000 tons per month, the union said.

Miners are demanding special benefit payments to give them protection against the potential fall in copper prices. They are also asking for better working conditions and family health benefits. Initially, the strike was planned to last five days, but the union then decided to stop work indefinitely.

Marx on Immigration

Workers, Wages, and Legal Status

by David L. Wilson

Monthly Review |  Volume 68, Issue 09 (February 2017)

Photo credit: Values & Capitalism.

On April 9, 1870, Karl Marx wrote a long letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt, two of his collaborators in the United States.1 In it Marx touched on a number of subjects, but his main focus was the “Irish question,” including the effects of Irish immigration in England. This discussion seems to have been Marx’s most extensive treatment of immigration, and while it hardly represents a comprehensive analysis, it remains interesting as a sample of Marx’s thinking on the subject—at least on one day in 1870.

The Unsung Heroes of Cooperative Movement

by Smarajit Jana

Frontier | Vol. 49, No.13-16, Oct 2 – 29, 2016

The story goes back to nineteen nineties, when the National Government of India felt the necessity to focus and target sex workers with a view to control spreading of HIV/AIDS in the country what brings sex workers into the lime light. Initial kneejerk reaction was to find out sex workers wherever possible followed by arrest and putting them to jail or to beat them mercilessly before burning their hutments. During those days no one raised any human rights violation issues, perhaps sex workers were not worth of getting that attention. Sooner the Government department came to the sense and developed a prevention strategy with the help of Global body of experts to prevent HIV transmission in the country. National or International agencies conceived sex workers as a ‘core group transmitter of HIV’.

Argentine Transit Workers Strike, Grinding Buenos Aires to Halt

Telesur | 19 December, 2016

Public transit workers march to demand income tax reform, Dec. 19, 2016. | Photo: Twitter / @UPSA_Oficial

The income tax reform labor unions are demanding would impact more than 1.5 million workers in Argentina.

Public transit operators in Argentina launched a one-day national strike Monday morning, grinding commuting in the capital city Buenos Aires to a halt to demand changes in the income tax system in the face of what labor unions have criticized as slow progress toward reforms to benefit workers.

Unions blast latest anti-worker attack

by Conrad Landin 

Morning Star | 19 December, 2016

UNIONS slammed Britain’s media barons yesterday for starting yet another anti-union campaign at the very moment that rail workers are fighting a vital battle to protect passenger safety

Conductors on Southern Rail, which serves south London and south-east England, will down tools for 48 hours today in their latest protest against the deskilling of their jobs.

The RMT walkout follows a drivers’ strike last week over the same issue of driver-only train operation, which unions fear will lead to the second member of on-board staff being stripped out altogether.