Union Workers Protest Abrupt End to Fuel Subsidies in Nigeria
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Elizabeth Boomer of the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department sends us this report.
Protestors rallied outside the World Bank building in Washington, D.C., yesterday in support of Nigeria’s nation-wide strike opposing the soaring price of fuel. After the government ended fuel subsidies Jan. 1, prices doubled overnight. Today in Nigeria, tens of thousands marched in the streets across the country.
The Washington action was aimed at the international financial institutions that have long argued against domestic fuel subsidies in Nigeria where long-term mismanagement and corruption have forced it to import 70 percent of its fuel, even while it is the 10th largest producer of crude oil in the world.
The sudden removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria, where the majority of people live on less than $2 a day, affects workers’ and families’ core economic decisions, including whether to pay for their children’s school fees this term or to go to the doctor this month. Higher fuel costs are also expected to raise food prices in Africa’s most populous country, an issue that could affect an entire region that is suffering from food price volatility. Read the rest of this entry »
Unionists Denounce Qatar as Choice for 2012 Climate Change Talks
AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh, a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), sends us another in a series of reports on the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations taking place now in Durban, South Africa.
The choice of Qatar for next year’s climate change conference drew an immediate and harsh reaction from the ITUC delegation. Qatar’s labor laws are highly restrictive. In a country where migrant workers make up the majority of the workforce—87 percent of the total population—government employees as well as non-Qatari nationals are not allowed to form or join unions.
We issued a statement calling on the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to reconsider the decision. Says Sharan Burrow, ITUC general secretary:
The international union movement will not accept climate change talks being held in a country which does not respect workers’ rights and is the highest emitter per capita in the world.
Global Unions Unite to Help Workers at Multinationals
The global union movement came together in Washington, D.C., last week to kick off a joint initiative to help workers at multinational companies join unions.
Members of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Council of Global Unions met with U.S. union leaders to discuss support for international organizing campaigns. Much of their help is directed at the United States, where workers’ rights now lag far behind other industrialized nations. They also met with senior officials of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The two-day meeting featured a presentation on Deutsche Telekom and subsidiary T-Mobile. While Deutsche Telekom respects workers’ rights in its home country of Germany, T-Mobile workers in the United States and other countries face management campaigns of intimidation and harassment because they want to form a union and gain collective bargaining rights.
Participants also discussed organizing initiatives at various companies, including Saint-Gobain, DHL, IKEA, Wal-Mart and Securitas.
Global Unions Push for Economic Stimulus
More than 90 trade union leaders from all parts of the world met this week in Washington, D.C., with senior officials of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to push for continuing economic stimulus to jump-start the global economy.
In the meetings, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick agreed on the importance of employment, social protection, working with trade unions and broadening the distribution of economic growth.
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow says:
In view of the continuing unemployment crisis worldwide, it is vital that the IMF and World Bank recognize the importance of maintaining global economic stimulus until recovery is assured.
World Bank Scuttles Anti-Worker Index
The World Bank’s decision to revise the controversial labor-market ratings in its flagship publication, Doing Business, is long overdue and a “significant step” in the right direction, global union and political leaders say.
Every year, the World Bank rates nations based on criteria that in principle rank countries’ “ease of doing business.” The bank measures 10 separate indicators. But unions, academics and activists have criticized Doing Business as a one-sided publication, focused almost exclusively on a narrow “private investor” perspective, with little regard for social impact.
