retail and food

retail and food

This section contains content related to the sectors retail and food.

Links: retail and food news
Related tags: agriculture, distribution, food service, supermarkets

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Roundup of a month of strikes in Iran

A round-up of recent strike activity in Iran, including the car industry and agriculture.

After three weeks of not receiving wages workers at the Alborz Elastics Factory began a strike on July 12. Management had reneged on a promise to pay a New Year's bonus to 400 workers, and has refused to pay into a loan fund for workers despite taking regular deductions from salaries.

Argos strike 'solid'

The 24 hour strike at Argos which started today over a sub-inflation pay offer is described by Unite union officials as 'rock solid'.

Distribution workers voted overwhelmingly for strike action; close to 70% of those voting in the ballot voted for strike action with a turnout of over 75%.

This stoppage will be followed by a 24 hour stoppage on Thursday 24th July followed by 4 day total stoppages beginning on 30th July as workers take staggered strike action.

Starbucks Global Day of Action - Belfast picket

Organise! and the WSM picketed Starbucks in Belfast city centre today from 12 to 1 pm. Despite the miserable weather around 12 people joined the picket and leafleted passers by and potential customers outside the coffee shop.

At the start of the picket 3 people had gone inside to leaflet customers and staff. There was a very positive response to the picket however one person was falsely accused of assaulting a Starbuck's member of staff after leafleting staff and customers inside.

Iranian sugar cane workers enter sixth week of strike

Workers of the Haft-Tapeh Sugar Cane Factory in Shush escalated their fight for unpaid wages this morning by blocking the main highway into the factory.

The blockade of the factory is the latest in a series of actions undertaken by workers, who are continuing their strike in the face of brutal repression by security forces.

Workers at Haft-Tapeh started their strike on May 5 to demand immediate payment of wages, which had not been received for three months prior to the strike.

Starbucks fires another barista for union activity

Cole Dorsey

Grand Rapids firing comes in the midst of Unfair Labor Practice charges being investigated by the NLRB against Starbucks.

Grand Rapids, MI (06/06/2008) - Starbucks terminated a barista active in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union today as part of its ongoing effort to combat a growing movement of employees pushing for a living wage and secure work hours. The barista, Cole Dorsey, was fired after two years of service while he was coordinating a union recruitment drive at Starbucks stores in Grand Rapids.

Grand Rapids Starbucks Union and Spanish CNT announce global day of action

Starbucks workers hold press conference on May 1st 2008.

Grand Rapids Starbucks Union and the Seville local of the Spanish CNT have announced a Global Day of Action against Starbucks July 5th.

Day to protest recent firing of CNT member in Spain and continuing anti-union discrimination in Grand Rapids

Twenty New York IWW members fired

Twenty IWW members have been fired from a food distributing warehouse in New York.

May 28, 2008

Flaum Appetizing, a kosher food distributor, terminated 20 IWW members last week. The IWW had a strong presence at Flaum, with about two-thirds of the warehouse being union members. Workers had been struggling for respect from the boss for almost a year before the firings occurred.

A world food crisis; empty rice bowls and fat rats

Food riots have broken out in several countries

A short look at the problems in world food production and supply, and its links with rising oil prices, global warming and changes in farming techniques.

In the Chittagong hill tracts of rural south-eastern Bangladesh the bamboo is in bloom - and the local poor are hungry and facing famine. Bamboo blooms and seeds itself roughly once every 50 years; the rats love the seeds, and their high protein content causes them to breed four times faster than normal.

Illegal immigrants win unpaid wages in Stockholm

Blockade of the Lilla Karachi restaurant by SAC members

The syndicalist SAC union in Sweden has been campaigning for fair wages for illegal immigrants in the last few months, resulting in thousands of pounds in unpaid wages being paid to migrant workers.

The increasing organisation of illegal immigrants within the syndicalist union SAC have lead to more and more blockades to force the payment of unpaid wages, mainly from employment agencies in the restaurant, cleaning, hotel and building industry. Millions Kronor in unpaid wages have been have been won by the SAC.

Direct action gets the goods again, this time in London

The Tom Ilic restuarant in Battersea is highly poncy and highly rated

An underpaying, exploitative restuarant boss in London was forced to pay a foreign kitchen porter his owed wages and also holiday pay when a picket arrived outside his restaurant, backed up by threats of legal action.

Cesare Copeta, an Italian national working seasonally in London, was employed by The Food Room, owners of The French Table restaurant in Surrey and the Tom Ilic restaurant in Battersea, which has been spotted listed in Time Out's Top 50 London restaurants.

Railway, agricultural workers protest and walk out

Protesting Egyptian Railway Authority workers, 1/3/2008

Recent weeks have seen a continuation of the workers' unrest in Egypt, with over 2,000 agricultural workers going on all-out strike at the end of February and 100 railway workers protesting their pay and conditions at the start of March.

Agricultural workers strike & sit-in

Pickets win re-instatement of migrant worker

Following three successful pickets of Delaney’s restaurant in Belfast Dasa Kacova has won all her demands and been offered her job back.

A young Slovakian worker was sacked on the spot from Delaney’s restaurant for asking why she had to remove her jumper at work on a cold January day. Delaney’s owners refused to meet with the worker or with her trade union representative.

Mozambique: wildcats and sabotage on the sugar cane plantations

600 seasonal workers at the Xinavane sugar plantation in Maputo province of Mozambique have been on wildcat strike since last Friday (15th February).

The workers are demanding a wage increase of over 100%, from 1,100 to 2,500 meticais (from US$46 to US$104), as well as protective clothing, overtime for working on Sundays and the right to a day off in the event of the death of a family member.

France: workers strike, many win

Restaurant and tire workers have won strikes with a bus drivers' strike ongoing.

Michelin - Workers at the factory in Toul (Meurthe et Moselle) began strike action after plans were announced to close it down. As well as occupying and blockading the plant with pickets of burning tyres the 826 workers also confined two managers to their offices during the four-day strike.

France: Carrefour strikers issued with summonses

Seven of the striking workers at the Grand Littoral hypermarket have been issued with summonses for "restriction of the right to work"

Workers at the hypermarket have been on strike since February the first.

France: Carrefour strike in Marseille enters 11th day

Till staff, shop floor workers and warehouse staff have been striking for 11 days now for better salaries and conditions.

The Grand Littoral branch of Carrefour is the only one in the country to have continued action after the national one-day retail strike. As a result Grand Littoral has been entirely closed for nine of the last eleven days.

France: unprecedented national strike hits retail sector

According to unions up to 80% of workers in supermarkets across the country joined in the strike action on Friday.

The strike was organised by the CGT CFDT and FO unions to pressurise management over pay and conditions, specifically part-time working and holiday working in a sector employing over 636,000 people.

Ivory coast workers win cocoa strike

Workers across the cocoa industry in Ivory Coast have gone back to work after winning a strike action which brought shipments to a standstill at the beginning of January.

The strikers wanted to secure better pay and working conditions, and oust senior management in government agencies accused of severe malpractice.

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