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TRUCKERS' STRIKE & CRISIS WORLDWIDE
* Greece - Enters Second Strike Week. Hundreds rally in Athens before vote. Parliament sets deregulation vote in face of protests. Protesting truck drivers refuse to back down
Athens,Greece -Reuters/eKathimerini, by YIORGOS KARAHALIS -21 Sept 2010: ... More than 2,000 truck drivers caused traffic chaos in central Athens yesterday after converging for a protest rally outside Parliament, where lawmakers were discussing controversial reforms to open up their sector to competition, due to be voted into law today... Police stopped the truckers from driving their vehicles into the city center, as some had planned to do, but hundreds left their trucks parked alongside highways on the outskirts of the city... Unionists said yesterday that they would continue their opposition to the implementation of the reforms, which they say will devalue their operating licenses and force thousands out of the sector as new truckers come in... The truck drivers' work stoppage, which enters its ninth day today, has yet to affect fuel supplies at gas stations. But supplies of other goods have been hit. In Thessaloniki, pharmaceutical wholesalers were reportedly running low on supplies yesterday. On many Aegean islands and other parts of the country, stores are low on basic supplies. Meanwhile, at the country's main port of Piraeus, more than 3,000 containers are waiting to be collected...* USA / PROTEST - Teamster women march in downtown Minneapolis
Minneapolis,MINN,USA -Work Day Minnesota, by Deborah Rosenstein -19 September 2010: -- Some 800 Teamsters, in the Twin Cities for a national Teamsters Women’s Conference, filled Peavey Plaza Friday to protest corporate greed and call for action to address the nation’s unemployment crisis... Women now make 82 cents for every dollar men earn, a smaller gap than in the past, but women’s wages aren’t really improving – men have fared worse in the current recession...
Kim Keller, deputy director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ Organizing Department, led the crowd in holding their thumbs down in front of the Target Corporation building to protest the company’s campaign donations to Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who is advocating more cuts in public services to pay for lower corporate taxes... (Photos by Deborah Rosenstein -1. Above: Minnesota Teamsters joined Joint Council 32 President Sue Mauren -center, in gray suit- at the rally. -2. Below: Members joined in singing "We Were There")* European austerity affects pensioners, royals
Madrid,Spain & Paris France -The Associated Press/The News Tribune, by DANIEL WOOLLS & JAMEY KEATON -19 Sept 2010: -- French workers and Spanish royalty became the latest to feel the bite of Europe’s debt crisis last week as officials said the king and queen would have to tighten their belts and France’s National Assembly voted to delay retirement until the ripe old age of 62... Spaniards largely welcomed word that their monarchs are feeling their pain, but anger flared across the border as French lawmakers overcame vocal protests to send to the Senate a sweeping overhaul of the retirement plan, including a highly contested measure to extend working life beyond 60... The vote puts France on track to become the latest country to require workers to stay on the job longer. Germany is set to raise its retirement age over the coming years from 65 to 67 to offset a shrinking, aging population, and the United States is gradually doing the same... Spain is doing the same, enraging unions that are planning Spain’s first general strike in nearly a decade for Sept. 29 to denounce competition-minded reforms that make it easier and cheaper for companies to lay people off... Spain is trying to chip away at a 20 percent unemployment rate and generate growth – and to avoid letting its deficit push Spain off the cliff Greece almost went over in May, when it was saved by a 110-billion-euro ($143.5 billion) EU and IMF rescue package... Europe’s other royals appear less inclined to emergency frugality. In the Netherlands, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima want to tear down postwar farmhouses to build three villas at a reported cost of 6 million euros each. And the Swedish royal court got 7 percent more money in 2010... (Photo by FRANCOIS MORI/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - French Unionists gather at Paris’ Place de la Concorde in front of France’s National Assembly, in background at left, last week to protest over plans to reform pensions)* UK - Debt crisis threatens European welfare state
London,UK -The Associated Press/The News Tribune, by MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN -21 Sept 2010: -- Six weeks of vacation a year. Retirement at 60. Thousands of euros for having a baby. A good university education for less than the cost of a laptop... The system known as the European welfare state was built after World War II as the keystone of a shared prosperity meant to prevent future conflict. Generous lifelong benefits have since become a defining feature of modern Europe...
Labels: strikes worldwide, truckers' protests
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