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Labor Notes (USA)
Review: Behind China's wildcat strike wave
Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China
By Eli Friedman
Cornell University Press/ILR Press, 2014.
By Jane Slaughter
October 15, 2014 -- Labor Notes, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- China is the world centre of wildcat strikes—given that no strike in China is officially allowed under the law. The government doesn’t issue statistics, but one source found 1171 strikes and worker protests from June 2011 through 2013.
China: 48,000 Adidas, Nike, Timberland strikers need your solidarity
The strike at the Yue Yuen shoe factory in Dongguan, China, keeps growing: now 48,000 workers have joined. Activists are asking international supporters to leaflet stores, and to send workers encouragement via the Facebook and Twitter hashtag #ChinaSolidarity.
April 23, 2014 -- Labor Notes -- The strike at the Yue Yuen shoe factory in Dongguan, China, keeps growing. Now 48,000 workers have joined and local groups are calling for international solidarity.
Labour activists at the site, in touch directly with the workers, are asking supporters to target Adidas and Nike and demand they negotiate directly with the workers.
Yue Yuen, owned by Pou Chen Group, is the largest athletic shoe manufacturer in the world.
Workers began striking April 5 after finding out that the work contracts they had been signing with the company were fake, and that the company had been significantly underpaying their social insurance for nearly 20 years.
NUMSA leaflet at Labor Notes: 'Building a United Front againt neoliberalism'
April 20, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Leaflet distributed by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) at the 2014 Labor Notes convention, April 4-6, in Chicago.
For more on NUMSA, click HERE.
Iran: Interview -- Trade union activists face repression as regime imposes austerity
January 19, 2010 -- Labor Notes -- Iran has seen incredible tumult in the last few months, with massive street protests challenging the government, even as the US and allied nations continue to threaten the Iranian government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But most people in the US know little about Iranian society, and especially its working class. Iranian workers have been organising for more than a century but today largely have to function in a secretive, underground way. It is therefore very fortunate that we have obtained an interview with a labour organiser (whom we shall call Homayoun Poorzad), who is based in Tehran, the capital city of Iran.
Labor Notes: How has the Iranian labour movement fared under the Ahmadinejad regime?
Homayoun Poorzad: This has been the most anti-labour government of the Islamic Republic over the last 30 years. The 1979 revolution was not regressive in every sense; it nationalised 70 per cent of the economy and passed a labour law that was one of the best in terms of limiting the firing of workers. This is a target for change by capitalists, both private and those in the government bureaucracy.
