Global Left Midweek – Workers of the World Awaken
- Italy: CGIL Turns to Party Politics
- Samsung Strikers Strike a Chord in South Korea
- Strike Wave in Greece
- National Strike and Mobilization in Peru
- Trade Unions Demand Gender-Transformative Agenda
- African Trade Unionists Launch Organizing Forum
- Georgia Republic: Online Casino Workers On Strike
- Alberta: Public Sector Unions Raise Hell
- Latin American Women Lead the Fight
- Elections: Lithuania, Uruguay, Japan
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Italy: CGIL Turns to Party Politics
Giuliano Cazzola / FIRSTonline (Rome)
Italy’s largest union, CGIL, expresses itself across the board not only as a political subject, a role that a large trade union organization also plays, but as a force which supports and fuels the political/party opposition to the current government.
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Samsung Strikers Strike a Chord in South Korea
Hee Sun Kim / East Asia Forum (Canberra)
The National Samsung Electronics Union began a strike on 10 July 2024, demanding improved pay and working conditions. Despite Samsung’s move towards automatisation and maintaining its power, changes are surfacing within the country’s workforce with younger generations showing less long-term loyalty to companies.
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Strike Wave in Greece
PAME (Athens)
A massive wave strike rose on Wednesday, October 23 and flooded Athens, Piraeus and major Greek cities. Maritime workers, teachers, dockers, metalworkers, and workers in hotels, tourism, catering and delivery were on strike demanding Collective Contracts with better wages as well as health and safety regulations at work. A general strike has been called for November 20.
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National Strike and Mobilization in Peru
Ben Radford / Green Left (Sydney)
Thousands of workers went on strike across Peru on October 23, followed by nationwide protests on October 24. The national strike was originally called by transport workers. Workers from other industries, students, small business owners, human rights groups, LGBTIQ rights organisations and community kitchens joined the national mobilisation.
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Trade Unions Demand Gender-Transformative Agenda
Public Services International et al.
The global trade union movement calls for the Beijing +30 Declaration to support the workers call for a New Social Contract rooted in a gender-transformative agenda and five key demands: gender equality for social justice, democracy and peace; women’s labor rights as human rights; decent work for women; equal pay for work of equal value; work free from gender-based violence and harassment.
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African Trade Unionists Launch Organizing Forum
IndustriALL (Geneva)
The African trade union organizing and collective bargaining strategic forum was launched in Kigali, Rwanda, on 3-4 October under the slogan “Building African Workers’ Power in Our Lifetime.” The forum brought together over 80 trade unionists from 28 African countries – over 50 per cent of the African Union’s 55 member states – with some participants coming from Belgium, Turkey, and Ireland.
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Georgia Republic: Online Casino Workers Strike
Vittoria Elliott / Wired (Boone IA)
For months, thousands of employees of Evolution, an online gambling company, have been on strike in Tbilisi, Georgia, protesting over pay, allegations of harassment, and unsafe working conditions. To create the realistic casino-like environment required, hosts must stand at the tables on camera for eight hours a day. Workers claim they are penalized for needing to leave, even for health reasons.
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Alberta: Public Sector Unions Raise Hell
Matthew Black / Edmonton Journal
A crowd of several thousand public sector union workers rallied outside the Alberta legislature building demanding better pay and improved working conditions in a demonstration amid continued bargaining with some of the province’s largest unions. The protesters included nurses, health care workers, teachers and education workers, provincial employees, and University of Alberta support staff.
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Latin American Women Lead the Fight
• Haiti: Juslene Tyresias Bianca Pessoa / Capire
• Brazil: Leci Brandão Beatriz Miranda / The Guardian (London)
• Mexico: Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez / Front Line Defenders (Dublin)
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Elections: Lithuania, Uruguay, Japan
• Lithuanian Social Democrat Beats Incumbent Liudas Dapkus / Associated Press (New York)
• Runoff in Uruguay Gabriel Díaz Campanella / EL PAÍS (Madrid)
• Japan CP Hopes Dashed Akiko Kato / The Mainichi (Tokyo)