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Labour protest against austerity in Europe

Sunday 28 February 2010

Workers of Europe don’t accept to pay the crisis


SPAIN

Spanish workers protest over government spending cuts

23 February 2010

Protests were held in Madrid, Barcelona and other cities

Thousands of workers have protested in Spain’s major cities against government spending cuts and plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 67.

The rallies were the first mass labour protests in the six years of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialist government.

He announced 50bn euro ($67.5bn; £43.8bn) spending cuts and a civil service hiring freeze in January.

Spain faces a large budget deficit, a sluggish economy and high unemployment.

The main demonstration was in Madrid, where union officials said 60,000 protested. Police put the crowd at a much smaller 9,000 people.

"Mr prime minister, don’t play around with pensions, with the future of millions and millions of people in our country," said union leader Ignacio Fernandez Toxo in a speech at the rally in Madrid.

Mr Zapatero also wants to change Spain’s rigid labour laws to make it easier and cheaper to hire workers.

Spain’s rising debt has prompted scrutiny from bond markets worried about a Greek-style budget crisis.

But the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Angel Gurria, said on Tuesday that Spain’s public debt was manageable and not comparable to Greece’s.

GREECE

Police in Greece have clashed with protesters striking over austerity measures designed to save the economy.

Police fired tear gas at a group of some 50 protesters as a rally attended by some 25,000 people ended in Athens.

It is the second general strike in two weeks and coincides with growing anger at the EU’s response to the crisis.

The action was the biggest since Greece’s socialist government introduced cuts to bring the country’s debt and deficit under control.

Greece closed airspace to all flights, while trains and ferries stood idle and archaeological sites remained shut for the day.

The country currently has a spiralling public deficit of 12.7%, more than four times higher than eurozone rules allow.

The government has pledged to cut this to 8.7% this year, and also reduce the 300bn-euro ($419bn; £259bn) national debt, by freezing public sector salaries, raising the average retirement age to 63 by 2015, and increasing taxes on petrol, alcohol and tobacco.

It also wants to crack down on tax avoidance. Greece’s black economy is estimated at 30% of official gross domestic product.

’Mild’ strike

The BBC’s Malcolm Brabant in Athens says that for the second time this month, Greece is isolated from the rest of the world for 24 hours as all flights into and out of the country have been cancelled.

Commuters have been left without most forms of public transport, while public schools, ministries, and municipal offices have been closed. Many hospitals are operating only with emergency staffing.

Demonstrations were held in Athens and Thessaloniki.

Our correspondent, who was at a protest in the centre of the capital that police estimated was attended by 25,000 people, said the mood there was resolute.

The march was peaceful but scuffles broke out between some demonstrators and police as the rally came to an end, and tear gas was fired.

Groups of youths then threw stones and smashed shop windows, police said. Three people were arrested.

The brief clashes were a distraction from the union’s main message that Greece’s rich should pay for the crisis, not the working and middle classes, our correspondent says.

The march was three times bigger than one held two weeks ago during the last 24-hour stoppage, our correspondent adds, but given that two million people were supposedly on strike, it was hardly the start of a revolution.

The country’s two largest trade union groups, the private sector GSEE and the public sector ADEDY, had predicted a substantial turnout among their two million members.

"Today, from all locations in the country, a strong message of unity, struggle and protest is being sent," the head of the GSEE, Yiannis Panagopoulos said in a statement .

"Today Greece is the guinea pig for EU stability and the euro’s resilience. Today it is Greece, tomorrow it will be Spain, Portugal and Italy."

Mr Panagopoulos said the government should adopt a mix of economic and social policies that would not lead to recession, but create jobs.

Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos told the BBC the government was not worried by the strike and would press ahead with the economic plan.

"What we have faced up until now and, I think, what we are going to face in the next days to come, are very mild. This is shown also by polls, which give overwhelming support to this government," he said.

Mr Pangalos also made a strident attack on the calibre of the EU’s current political leaders, saying those of the 1980s - such as Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand - would never have permitted the current economic crisis.

Protest march in Athens, 24 Feb

Athens police estimated that 25,000 people marched in the capital

"This is another level of leadership which we don’t have today. The quality of leadership today in the union is very, very poor indeed," he said.

Although the EU has offered moral support to Greece, it has been far from enthusiastic, not least because of the country’s dubious accounting practices, our correspondent says.

But Mr Pangalos accused Italy of being more inaccurate with its financial statistics, and said Germany should not criticise Athens because it had wrecked the Greek economy and slaughtered thousands during the Nazi occupation.

"They took away the gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away Greek money, and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future," he added.

More than 300,000 Greek civilians died from starvation during World War II, while thousands more were killed in reprisals. The economy was crippled, as foreign trade was suspended, agricultural output ground to a halt, and the treasury had to lend Germany money.

Germany paid Greece about 115m Deutschemarks in 1960 to compensate victims of Nazi persecution, but it has refused more recent demands for further funds. However, some Greeks say the compensation did not cover civilian victims of reprisals and the loan.

Ratings downgraded

Analysts say Greece may be forced to implement even tougher austerity measures to meet EU demands in the coming months. This could include a rise in value-added tax (VAT), which stands at 19%.

On Tuesday, the credit ratings of Greece’s four largest banks were downgraded by ratings agency Fitch, a move that may worsen the country’s financial woes.

The move will make it more expensive for the banks to borrow funds, and the government to get loans.

Greece is required to report back to fellow eurozone nations by 16 March on how well its efforts are progressing.

Finance ministers from the other 15 nations that share the single currency have warned that the Greek government may have to adopt further measures if the ones currently being enforced are not shown to be working fast enough.

At the weekend, Prime Minister George Papandreou told the BBC that Greece was not looking for a financial bail-out from other European countries.

He said that Greece was instead looking for political support from across Europe to enable it to borrow money at the same interest rates as other countries.

IRELAND

Protest over dismissals at Green Isle plant

27 February 2010 22:50

The General Secretary-Designate of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union has said it is going to escalate its action in the coming days if the union is going to save the lives of the two Green Isle employees who are on hunger strike.

Eamon Devoy was speaking at a rally of about 400 people who marched to the Green Isle plant today in support of three employees who have been dismissed by the company.

In a statement, Green Isle Foods said it views the hunger strike action as unhelpful and said the only way this dispute can be resolved is through the independent mediation currently underway.

Green Isle Foods says this dispute, which began six months ago, relates to its staff members accessing extreme adult material through email accounts and said all employees involved were dismissed.

However, the TEEU - which acknowledged two of the its dismissed members were sent this material in emails - said several more people were involved and only a small group was sacked.

Mr Devoy said Green Isle workers cannot download material on to their computers and this had come from an anonymous source.

The union says the issue centres on union representation and a restructuring plan to get rid of TEEU members.

Around 400 supporters marched to the Green Isle plant in Naas this afternoon to show their support for the three dismissed staff.

Two colleagues - TEEU shop steward Jim Wyse and former Offaly footballer John Guinan - are on hunger strike in protest at their dismissal.

Green Isle foods, which is a non-unionised business, says the hunger strike is not helpful and this issue can only be resolved through the mediation process currently underway.

FRANCE

Workers at several French refineries end strike

Posted: 25 February 2010 0150 hrs

PARIS - Workers at several French refineries on Wednesday ended a strike that has run fuel pumps dry, after winning concessions from oil giant Total in a dispute over cuts in the sector.

AFP reporters saw workers at the Total refinery in Feyzin, near the eastern city of Lyon, and four other plants across the country, vote in their hundreds to end their eight-day old strike at afternoon meetings.

The CGT union, which has played a leading role in negotiations, said talks with management on Tuesday had made "satisfactory progress."

Total made a formal agreement that it would not shut or sell its refineries in France in the next five years — but the accord does not cover the plant at the heart of the strike, in Dunkirk, northern France.

The fate of the Dunkirk refinery remains to be decided at a works committee meeting on March 8, and the CGT and other unions warned they may strike again at that date.

Workers at Dunkirk, who have been on strike for six weeks, rolled their action over at a vote on Wednesday.

Under government pressure to safeguard jobs, Total has promised not to close Dunkirk but has not committed to maintain its refining activities, prompting tough negotiations on the restructuring of jobs there.

The world’s major oil companies are grappling with a crisis in the refining sector which is forcing them to cut back heavily to staunch losses.

Total is ranked as the sixth biggest oil company in the world by sales and is France’s biggest company by market capitalisation.

Pumps at hundreds of its filling stations had run out of fuel during the strike over the past days just as families hit the road for the mid-term holidays.

Christophe Hiou, a CGT representative at the Donges refinery in western France, estimated on Wednesday that it would take three days to get the refinery running fully again, but said there were tanks full of fuel in the plant ready to go.

French CGT union calls for port strike on Feb. 26

Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:24pm GMT

PARIS, Feb 25 (Reuters) - France’s CGT union on Thursday called on the country’s port workers to walk off the job for 24 hours on Feb. 26 in support of striking rights.

The union is calling for a national action to protest against a striking worker at the western Nantes Saint-Nazaire port being forced to help the police to free a cruise liner, the union said in a statement.

Some workers started a strike on Feb. 23 at the Nantes Saint-Nazaire port, France’s third largest oil port, to protest a law to reform state-run ports, the CGT said.

"A salaried worker who was exercising his right to strike was forced to carry out manoeuvres to free a cruise liner," the union said.

French ports have been hit by repeated strikes in the last three years after the government decided to privatise unloading operations at the docks previously run by the state.

A 12-day strike in December 2008, which threatened to shut several refineries dependent on the Fos-Lavera port, France’s biggest oil port, blocked 61 ships.

Port employers have long complained that inflexible labour practices have hampered competitiveness at French docks, while labour groups fear privatisation could lead to job losses. (Reporting by Muriel Boselli; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

BELGIUM

The grave accident of train have a consequence : railway workers accuses the privatisation of the company

Train crash triggers workers’ strike in Belgium

English.news.cn 2010-02-16 18:35:00

BRUSSELS, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) — Belgium railway workers went on strike on Tuesday morning, one day after two passenger trains crashed headon near Brussels that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 150 others.

The union of the railway workers said the all-out strike aimed to protest the working conditions. The union chief Gerard Gelmini criticized the managers of the national train company, the SNCB, for being keen on buidling new stations and offices, instead of security equipments.

The strike has affected the railway transportion in Belgium, causing many cancellations and delays. Recent snows had also caused disruption of public transport in Belgium.

The accident happened at 8:45 local time (0745 GMT) on Monday morning in the Belgium town of Halle, some 15 kilometers southwest of Brussels, which is one of the worst rail accident in the Belgian history.

The cause of the collision is still under investigation, with suspicions of one driver’s mistake as well as lack of safte equipements.

BRUSSELS, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) — At least 20 people were killed on Monday morning after two passenger trains collided head-on outside Brussels, local media reported.

The two commuter trains collided at about 8:45 a.m. local time (0745 GMT), the height of morning rush hour, in the Belgian town of Halle, some 15 km southwest of Brussels. Full story

BEIJING, Feb. 16 — The death toll from Monday’s train collision in Belgium has risen to 18 with 162 others wounded. The crash was the deadliest in the country since a derailment in 1974.

Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme says it was a "black day" for his country. Full story

Railway traffic linking France, Belgium suspended after train crash

PARIS, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) — Railway traffic between France and Belgium was suspended Monday due to a fatal train collision in Belgium, according to a statement of French national railway operator SNCF.

"To allow emergency rescue work, the SNCF has suspended rail traffic between France and Belgium for the whole day," the statement said. Full story

ITALY

Italian Fiat workers strike against plant shutdown

(AFP) – Feb 3, 2010

MILAN — Fiat workers throughout Italy went on strike Wednesday to protest the planned shutdown of a car plant in Sicily, as a minister hinted incentives for the auto industry could be stopped in 2010.

A Fiat spokesman said 14 percent of the 32,000 workers on duty on Wednesday morning took part in the four-hour strike against the planned shutdown at the end of 2011 of Termini Imerese, a plant in Sicily that employs 1,400 workers.

Local representatives of the Fiom labour union — the largest within Fiat — said the strike involved 80 percent of workers in Termini Imerese and between 50 and 70 percent of workers at the Mirafiori plant in northern Italy.

Fiat announced in June its decision to shut down the Sicilian plant and chief executive Sergio Marchionne confirmed it in January in spite of the controversy the shutdown caused among labour unions and politicians.

"Termini Imerese should not be shut down. There is no overcapacity in Italy," said the leader of Fiom, Gianni Rinaldini, Ansa news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola said the government was "evaluating" the possibility of halting all state incentives in 2010, including those in the auto sector that are crucial for Fiat.

The minister’s comments were seen by sector experts as a possible warning to the carmaker over the planned shutdown.

Fiat also recently announced it would halt production at all Italian plants for two weeks starting on February 22 because of a fall in new car orders, a measure that will place 30,000 workers on unemployment benefits.

Marchionne said in December that Fiat would increase production in Italy from 650,000 to 1 million vehicles over the next few years, mainly by moving production of the Panda, one of its best selling models, from Poland to Italy.

The announcement failed to reassure workers, who believe Marchionne, now also the chief executive of Chrysler, is focusing attention and resources in reviving the troubled US carmaker.

"Marchionne’s interests have moved to the US, to Chrysler, and Italian factories are increasingly marginalized," Vittorio De Martino, a representative of the Fiom labour union, told AFP on Wednesday.

PORTUGAL

Portugal biggest union says general strike needed-

* 725,000-strong union says general strike possible

* To escalate protests against public sector pay freeze

By Shrikesh Laxmidas and Patricia Rua

LISBON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The head of Portugal’s largest labour union said on Wednesday that a nationwide general strike nay be necessary to combat the Socialist government’s austerity measures, but stopped short of calling one outright.

A general strike involving workers from both public and private sectors would be the first in Portugal in over a decade.

Portugal’s Socialist government, under investor pressure to cut spending and ensure it will not be the next weak link in the euro zone after Greece, has frozen civil service salaries this year as part of its plan to reduce its ballooning fiscal gap.

A one-day general strike crippled Greece’s transport and public services on Wednesday halting flights, trains and ferries as tens of thousands rallied in Athens to protest against austerity plans aimed at wrenching Greece out of a debt crisis.

"I say a scenario like the strike in Greece is necessary," Manuel Carvalho da Silva, leader of the 725,000-strong General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), told Reuters.

"The 2010 budget is only part of a set of measures we expect will be even harsher in the long-term growth and stability programme," Carvalho da Silva said, making clear this would lead to an escalation of labour protests.

He made no specific call for a general strike and mentioned no possible date.

The government is due to present its long-term budget consolidation plans in the next few days and has indicated it will focus on public sector spending to cut the fiscal gap to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2013 from 8.3 percent this year.

The country is only just emerging from its worst recession in decades and unemployment is at 10.1 percent.

"Cutting salaries is not a measure to combat the economic crisis. We cannot accept that," Carvalho da Silva added.

The Common Front, a CGTP member and Portugal’s biggest public administration union, has called a civil servants’ strike against this year’s pay freeze for March 4.

The UGT, Portugal’s second-largest union and traditionally close to the Socialists, has come out in support of the strike.

Its leader Joao Proenca told Reuters on Monday that it would call further strikes if the pay freeze were extended.

"It will be a significant protest, an expression of our determination to act," Carvalho da Silva said of the March 4 action. (Reporting by Shrikesh Laxmidas; editing by Axel Bugge and Charles Dick)

GERMANY

Germany strikes public-sector wage deal

People waving a ver.di flag during a warning strike.

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The Ver.di union represents over 2 million workers

After months of warning strikes across Germany, public workers have reached an agreement with the government over a long-standing wage dispute. But not everyone is pleased with the outcome.

The terms, which were announced late on Saturday, February 27, stipulate that the salaries of employees from federal and local authorities will be increased gradually to around 2.3 percent by 2011.

Furthermore, the new collective bargaining agreement creates arrangements for partial retirement at the age of 60, and guarantees employment for trainees who successfully pass the requisite testing.

The lead negotiator for the government, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, praised the agreement, calling it a "responsible compromise" that would not overly strain public funds.

The new agreement will affect about 2 million employees.

De Maiziere recommended that the new tariff agreement be applied to other government workers as well.

No cause for celebration

A display at a tram stop warns of service interruptionsBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The warning strikes caused delays in public transit across Germany

The workers’ union, however, was less enthusiastic.

"Although [the agreement] is more than what was expected from the employers during the talks, it is less than what many had hoped for and what would have been necessary," said Ver.di president Frank Bsirske

The union originally entered the negotiations in January seeking a 5-percent increase, which they later reduced to 3.5 percent.

Under the agreement, public workers will receive a retroactive 1.2 percent increase effective January 2010, which will be increased incrementally until it reaches 2.3 percent in the summer of 2011.

The agreement also includes a ’social component’ calling for a one-time payment of 240 euros ($310) in January 2011.

A burden for communities

Employers welcomed the development of performance-pay and the implementation period of 26 months. However, for many local communities, the additional money represents "a considerable burden," said president of the VKA municipal employers association, Thomas Boehle.

"The situation of local budgets is as bad as ever," he said, referring to the many municipalities in Germany that are already operating in the red.

According to Boehle, the agreement would be "painful" for many cities and communities.

In the months leading up to the negotiations, thousands of public sector workers staged temporary strikes, bringing buses and trams in parts of the country to a standstill.

SWEDEN

This Sunday is the deadline for industry partners to make up for the new wage agreements. Från måndag den 1 mars är det industrins opartiska ordförande, eller medlare, som tar över taktpinnen. From Monday, March 1st is the industry’s impartial chairman or mediator, who takes over the baton. Därefter handlar det för fack och arbetsgivare om att reagera på de bud som Opos lägger fram. Then it is for unions and employers to respond to the bid OPOS presents.

Det är industrin alla ögon riktas mot, eftersom de förväntas teckna avtal som blir riktmärke för övriga områden på arbetsmarknaden. The industry is all eyes directed towards, as they are expected to sign agreements that becomes a benchmark for other sectors of the labor market. Ska det fungera är tiden begränsad, eftersom avtalen för handeln, kommunerna och byggbranschen löper ut samtidigt som för industrin, den 31 mars. Is it to serve the time is limited, because the agreements on trade, municipalities and the construction industry will expire at the same time for the industry, on 31 March.

Sedan Industriavtalet och förhandlingsordningen med Opos föddes 1997 har industrins parter inte någon gång haft ett avtal klart innan medlarna klivit in. Since the Industrial and negotiating arrangements with OPOS was born in 1997, industry partners have not ever had a contract well before the mediators entered the age. Så det är ingen sensation att så knappast sker nu heller. So there is no sensation that so little is happening now either. Men till skillnad från i den senaste stora avtalsrörelsen 2007 verkar förhandlingarna inte alls röra sig framåt. But unlike the last big bargaining negotiations in 2007 seems not to move forward.

Det som pågår liknar mest ett ställningskrig, där båda sidor målar upp motparten som orsak till stiltjen. What is happening is most like a position of war, where both sides hold up the other party as a cause of hiatus. IF Metall anklagar industrins arbetsgivare för att förhala processen eftersom inget preciserat bud har lagts på bordet. IF Metall accusing industry employers to delay the process because no precise bid has been placed on the table. Noll kronor i de centrala avtalen finns enligt facket inte på kartan och så länge det budet ligger är vägen framåt blockerad. Zero crowns in the central agreements are in accordance with the union is not on the map and as long as the bid is the way forward is blocked.

Teknikföretagens förhandlingschef Anders Weihe kontrar att det inte går att lägga ett bud så länge facket ”villkorar” förhandlingarna på ett omöjligt sätt. Engineering Industries negotiator Anders Weihe counter that you can not place a bid so long as the union "conditional" negotiations in an impossible way. LO-kravet på att få begränsa hur bemanningsbolag används har enligt Teknikföretagen utvecklats till ett ”fackligt veto”, som helt låser situationen. LO requirement to limit how staffing companies are used under Engineering Industries has developed into a "union veto", which completely freezes the situation.

Samtidigt går Svenskt Näringslivs vice vd Christer Ågren, högste ansvarig för avtalsfrågorna, ut och hävdar att det är LO:s jämställdhetspotter som orsakar stiltjen i förhandlingarna. At the same time Swedish Enterprise Vice President Christer Agren, senior manager of contract issues, and the claim that there are LO’s gender pots causing hiatus in negotiations.

Frågan om de centrala avtalens roll, bemanningsbolagen och jämställdhetspotterna är i grunden maktfrågor. The question of the central role of contracts, staffing companies and jämställdhetspott limits is fundamentally about power. Lönebildning som bara sker lokalt ute på företagen försvagar de centrala fackens roll, alltså vägrar de att backa där. Wage setting that only locally based companies looking to weaken the central trade union’s role, therefore, they refuse to go back there. För arbetsgivarna är medbeslutande om bemanningsbolag ett ingrepp i den fria arbetsledarrätten, en princip som de inte är beredda att tumma på. For employers, the co-decision on staffing companies an interference in the free labor management law, a principle that they are not prepared to tamper with.

Jämställdhetspotterna var LO:s stora triumf i den förra avtalsrörelsen, som Svenskt Näringsliv accepterade först efter en uppslitande konflikt kring handelns avtal. Jämställdhetspott Erna was LO’s great triumph in the last bargaining round, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise accepted only after a bruising conflict on trade agreements. Den här gången verkar arbetsgivarsidan fast besluten att sätta stopp för en fortsättning. This time, the employers seem determined to put an end to the continuation. LO marknadsför potterna som en metod att få jämställda löner, men konstruktionen ger också LO-styrelsen stor makt över lönebildningen. LO markets pots as a way to get equal pay, but the design also gives the LO board great power over wage setting.

Vägen mot nya avtal är därmed kantad av svårforcerade hinder och när avtalen löper ut den 31 mars upphör också fredsplikten. Towards the new contract is thus surrounded by major barriers and obstacles on the scheduled expiry on 31 March also ends the peace obligation. Sannolikheten för en konflikt, mitt i en djup lågkonjunktur, var från början inte så stor. The likelihood of a conflict, in the middle of a deep recession, was initially not so great. Nu verkar den öka. Now it seems the increase.

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