repression
Articles about state or employers repression and legal, police, military or paramilitary intimidation or violence against workers or social movements.
Shipping companies file charges over May Day anti-war strike
US West Coast dockers who struck against the war on May 1st now face a legal threat from their employers.
The Pacific Maritime Association has asked the National Labor Relations Board to file charges against the union. The employers’ move, initiated in late May, comes in the midst of ongoing contract talks.
Clothing company beating of Bangladeshi workers in Athens met with wildcat collective action
Bangladeshi workers in clothing sweatshop in Athens, Greece, were attacked by company thugs for refusing to work on Sunday. When their co-workers walked out in solidarity, the company fired 120 out of 180 of the working force. In response the workers have sealed the factory off forcing the company to withdraw the lay-offs and negotiate.
On Monday 23 of June 2008 Bangladeshi foremen and thugs in the pay of the “LADY FASHION” clothing sweatshop in Votanikos, Athens, attacked Bangladeshi immigrant workers who had refused to work in the previous day (Sunday being an official day-off in Greece), using iron bars and wooden clubs.
Corfu garbage-dump protest followup: renewed barricades met with plastic bullets by greek riot-police
20 days after the battle between residents of Lefkimi township in south Corfu and the riot-police over the construction of an open garbage-dump, renewed mobilisation of the residents is once again being met with repression and arbitrary punitive measures such as inhibiting farmers from accessing their fields.
Starbucks fires another barista for union activity
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.
Iraqi oil Minister transfers union activists
The Iraqi Oil minister, Hussein Al-Shahirstani, had ordered the transfer of 8 Oil Union activists to Baghdad's Al-Dorah neighborhood (known for worsening security situation, and high level of sectarian killings). In the context of Iraqi security situation such a transfer is rightfully regarded as a human rights violation.
The Iraqi Oil minister, Hussein Al-Shahirstani, had ordered the transfer of 8 Oil Union activists.
They used to work at the Oil refineries in the south. This act represents the minister's anti-union policy, and lack of respect for Unions and Unions' activists in the Oil sector.
One dead protester after barricades against open garbage-dump in south Corfu end in clashes with riot police
On the 29th of May residents of Lefkimi in Corfu erected barricades to stop the construction of an open garbage-dump near their town. Clashes with riot-police have left one dead, one parasylsed. The area is under police occupation.
The residents of Lefkimi in the south of Corfu island in greece are opposed to the construction of an Open Garbage-Dump (XYTA) near their town. The residents claimed that their marginalised, underdeveloped area known for its left-wing tradition and defience was being used as a refuse for the tourist-industry produced garbage of the north.
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.
Egypt cracks down post-strike
Rob Ray reports for Freedom Newspaper on continuing crackdowns on civil liberties in Egypt
Following a period of upheavals in Egypt, the state is attempting to reassert control with a series of measures aimed at curbing both the labour movement and the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest radical Islamic group.
South Africa: Gangster landlord continues campaign of intimidation with police support
The poor of Motala Heights, affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo since 2006, are fighting a bitter battle against eviction against a local gangster business man and the local state. There have recently been death threats and threats of arson and the local cops are acting as the gangsters' enforcers.
[i]London anarchist, Antonios Vradis lived in the community for a while in late 2006 from and it was here that the anarchist magazine Voices of Resistance from Occupied London was conceived.
Babylon Burning: West Kingston lock-down and police killings in Jamaica (2001)
In the summer of 2001, police locked down parts of the downtown area of Kingston, Jamaica. This contemporary leaflet reports on the event, and examines the background to the violence that makes Jamaica the state with the largest police 'kill-rate' (per head of population) in the world.
On Saturday 7th July 2001 July police entered Tivoli Gardens in Downtown Kingston, the Jamaican capital, looking for guns that had killed Willy Haggart, the gang leader, or don, of nearby Arnett Gardens, an event that had resulted in weeks of intermitant gang violence between supporters of both parties in the West Kingston areas Hannah Town and Denham Town.
