transport
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in transport and distribution around the world.
South African workers refuse to move arms bound for Zimbabwe
South African Transport Union members have announced they will not offload Chinese arms that are being shipped to crisis-torn Zimbabwe.
A boat carrying an arms shipment destined for Zimbabwe is anchored at the South African port of Durban. However the South African Transport Workers' Union has already announced that their members will not offload any of the cargo, nor will any of their truckers transport it.
Greece: General strike against pension reform
Thousands of Greek workers have joined a 24-hour strike in protest against reforms which could jeapordise pensions and jobs.
Launched by Greece's two largest unions, the strike has affected all public services, hospitals, banks, courts and airports. All flights out of Athens airport have been grounded after air traffic controllers, pilots and flight crews walked out, and ferry and metro systems across the country have been hit.
Transport strikes across Italy
Italy's biggest transport strike in 25 years forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights, idled trains, anchored ships, and stalled buses across the country on Friday.
Aero-news.net reported that Italian carrier Alitalia canceled 217 domestic and international flights before a four-hour walkout by pilots, flight crew and ground staff beginning at 11 am. Air One, Italy's number two carrier, only guaranteed nine flights there.
France: More workers join strikes
Hundreds of thousands of health workers, civil servants, printers postal workers and air traffic controllers yesterday joined transport and energy strikes over pensions and pay.
Thousands joined street protests in Paris, Rouen, Strasbourg, Marseille, Grenoble, Lyon and other cities.
The 24 hour strike left many schools closed, hospitals providing a reduced service and newsagents without newspapers.
The BBC reported that the French capital's two airports and Marseille airport in the south suffered delays and cancellations.
France: transport strikes enter second week
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The transport strikes that have crippled France enter their second week today with negotiations scheduled for tomorrow.
The number of strikers seems to have stabilised at a relatively low figure of around 20% for the RATP (Paris transport) and 25% for the SNCF (rail), however this number does not reflect the effect upon services. General assemblies of rail workers cotinue to vote to continue strike action by massive majorities even thogh the number of strikers is lower.
France: Transport strikes are still going strong
The strikes, which seemed to be tailing off, appear to be affecting more services as workers renew strike action ahead of negotiations on Wednesday.
The six unions involved in the strike (CGT, FO, CFTC, Unsa, CFE-CGC and SUD after the CFDT withdrawal on Friday) called on workers' assemblies to vote to continue strike action.
France: transport strike holds as CFDT union withdraws
Although the CFDT union advised its members to vote at AGs to return to work from Friday, the strike appears to be at least holding at a similar level.
The CFDT leadership argued that as the strike was visibly weakening each day it was better to return to the negotiating table, the government demanding an end to strikes as a condition of negotiations. The number of official strikers on Friday fell to 23% on the metro and 32% on the SNCF.
Korea: rail-workers, dockers and truckers call off strike
Unions for the three groups had arranged a coordinated strike action to begin today in support of their demands.
The government had declared the strike illegal and had mobilised hundreds of soldiers to try to keep the railways open over the weekend. This would have been the fourth such strike in South Korea since 2000. The unions have yet to confirm why they cancelled the action, with many workers told while they were preparing pickets only an hour before the official debut of action at 4am
Behind the unrest in France, 2007
Jef Costello examines the reasons behind the recent wave of strikes and university occupations in France.
The keyword in current French politics is reform. Both presidential candidates claimed that France needs to modernise to be able to complete on a global level. Surveys showed that most voters identified both Royal and Sarkozy as 'candidats de la rupture' meaning that they represented a break, a break from the traditions of working class militancy and France's revolutionary and socialist past.
France: trains and bus strikes continue
Transport strikes continued across France today, although the number of services running increased.
According to the CGT observance of the strike today (Thursday) was at 46%, 42,8% according to management, figures for yesterday were 61.5%. In Paris observance dropped from 44% yesterday to 27.2%.
The striking unions called for AGs to vote to continue the action on Friday.
