job losses
Archive of articles on job losses and working class struggles against them.
Protests due after police raid Thomas Cook occupation in Dublin
Protests have been called at short notice in Dublin and Belfast after 28 workers occupying Thomas Cook offices in Dublin's Grafton Street fighting jobs cuts were arrested this morning.
Protesting former workers at travel operator Thomas Cook in Dublin were arrested after after early-morning Garda raids for defying a court order to end a four-day sit-in at company premises in a dispute over redundancy payments.
Ssangyong occupation update: August 4 (Korea time), 2009
***Real Time Update***
Right now a special division of 2,500 police are engaged in an assault on the occupied factory. The cops have removed most barricades and are using aerial ladders to attempt to reach the fortified roof positions of the strikers. 3 helicopters are supporting the cop attack. Hand-to-hand battles are presently occurring and the strikers are fighting back with molotov cocktails. Due to the intensity of the fighting, there will probably be many casualties -- and possibly fatalities.
***Real Time Update (August 4, 2009; 1:30 p.m. Korea time)***
Ssangyong occupation update: August 2, 2009
Talks between management and striking workers who've been occupying the factory have broken down. Electricity has also been turned off, in addition to water which was cut off two weeks ago.
From the Korea Times (with an obvious pro-company bias):
08-02-2009 18:15
Ssangyong Faces Liquidation After Labor Talks Fail
By Kim Rahn, Park Si-soo
Staff Reporters
Troubled Ssangyong Motor faces liquidation after last-ditch negotiations between management and union members representing laid-off workers collapsed Sunday.
Thomas Cook outlets in Dublin occupied against closure
On Friday 31 July Thomas Cook managers and security went to close down shops in Dublin at 10 a.m. Staff in two of the outlets then occupied their workplaces in response.
The workers, some of whom are members of the Transport and Salaried Staff Association (TSSA), have since been served a court ordered to leave the premises but are refusing to budge.
Ssangyong occupation update: day eleven, July 30, 2009
Negotiations have occurred several times throughout the day. The major hurdle is layoffs: management says they're necessary; strikers won't budge and demand that no one be laid off, even if it requires less hours for everyone and work furloughs. For the government and management it is crucial to break the strike so that austerity can be imposed on other autoworkers, as well as in other sectors needing restructuring due to the crisis. The biggest creditor of Ssangyong is Sanup Bank(Korean Development Bank), which is government owned.
***Update July 30, 2009***
Vestas occupiers sacked
On Tuesday night, eleven of the twenty-five Vestas wind turbine workers occupying their plant against closure were fired without offer of redundancy pay.
Eleven of the 25 workers at the Vestas factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, England who have been carrying out a sit-in since Monday July 20 have been sacked with immediate effect.
Ssangyong occupation update: day ten, July 29, 2009
July 29, 2009 is day 10 (corrected: the police assault began July 20). Medical workers and other community solidarity supporters attempted to deliver water to the factory in the morning. In the afternoon KCTU organized a rally of 3,000, only to have it attacked by as many as 10 helicopters dropping bags of toxic tear gas, in addition to 500 riot cops attacking the demonstrators and watercanon trucks spraying teargas on them.
***Update July 29, 2009***
Continued police presence around Ssangyong factory: 
***Morning hours***
Ssangyong occupation update: day nine, July 28, 2009
Yesterday (Monday, July 27, 2009) evening at 6:30, taking 40 minutes, around 3,000 police (out of a total of 9,000 cops surrounding the factory) and the fire department conducted a coordinated drill to simulate a "safe" retaking of the factory. But in the process, cops inched closer to the factory, securing positions within 30 meters of the paint department. A SWAT team of 50 cops also participated.
***Update Tuesday, July 28, 2009***
The latest report from strike supporters say there are 785 workers in the factory, made up of both those regular workers who are being laid off as well as casualized workers who joined the struggle in solidarity.
Ssangyong occupation update: days seven/eight, July 26-27, 2009
The police are closing in on the paint department, but the strikers occupying the factory are not backing down. They broadcast their determination to "fight to the death" over loudspeakers from the paint department roof, only to have the cop helicopters immediately resume the bombardment with bags of a toxic teargas mixture.
The map below shows that as of Monday at 1:00 p.m. the cops have fought their way even closer to occupied paint department (at bottom center with the number 2): 
***Sunday, July 26, 2009***
Workers holed up in the factory: 
French workers continue bossnapping
French Workers Lock Up Execs in a New Eruption of 'Bossnappings'
French factory workers, angry over layoffs and cost cuts, locked up their bosses
at a Michelin tire plant and a U.S.-owned cigarette-paper mill in a new eruption
of kidnapping their bosses. The auto and auto parts industries have been
particularly hard hit by cutbacks and a backlash by French workers during the
country's worst recession in decades.
