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WFTU SUPPORTING PAKISTAN PEOPLE
Greece: The deadly floods in Pakistan are another proof that the people of the world are unprotected against the natural phenomena, despite the technological breakthrough. Those condemned in poverty, illnesses, imperialist wars and massive immigration rates by the imperialist aggressiveness and barbarity are also condemned in insecurity, uncertainty and misery because of the lack of flood protection measures (as well as earthquake and fire protection measures).
The World Federation of Trade Unions reafirms its sympathy with the people of Pakistan for the national calamity caused by the worst flooding in nearly a century. The devastation caused by the floods has killed thousands of people and over 20 million people have lost their every belongings.
We are following all developments in the area and we express our moral support to all unions and members that are going to rebuilt their country and the living conditions of the people of Pakistan.
Once again we express our full solidarity with the working class of Pakistan and we hope that they can find the strength to overcome this tragedy.
We call upon all the trade union organisations of the world to support the people and the working class of Pakistan with any practical and material way possible
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
New statistics highlight challenges for Government’s migration target
New statistics show that net immigration to the UK (the surplus of people immigrating over people emigrating) in the year to December 2009 was 196,000. This compares with 163,000 in the year to December 2008, an increase of around 20 per cent (but is significantly lower than the peaks of around 220,000 seen in 2005 and 2007).
But this hasn’t been caused by an increase in immigration, or at least not in the way that most people think about it.
In fact, declining net emigration by British citizens accounted for most of the increase in net immigration. Net emigration by British citizens was 36,000 in the year to December 2009, compared with 90,000 in the year to December 2008, a decline of over 60 per cent. Meanwhile, net immigration by non-British nationals was stable at around 220,000.
The increase in net immigration shown in statistics is bad news for the Government, given its now oft-restated aim of reducing net immigration to ‘tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands’. With net immigration now rising again, after a period of substantial declines, this objective looks like it is becoming harder and harder to reach.
In seeking to achieve its objective, the Government has already introduced a temporary cap on immigration via Tiers 1 and 2 of the Points-Based System, with a permanent cap to be announced towards the end of this year. It is reviewing the student visa system; has brought forward various initiatives planned by the previous government to tighten the immigration rules, and has made clear that future EU expansion will be accompanied by transitional controls on migration to the UK from new member states.
But the Government may find itself running to stand still with respect to its total net immigration target if British net emigration continues to decline. Ippr’s paper The Limits to Limits explored the numbers behind the immigration cap in some detail, and concluded that net immigration of less than 100,000 could be achieved without major policy changes, in the current economic circumstances.
However, this analysis assumed that British net emigration continued at levels of around 70,000 a year. With today’s figures showing British net emigration of just 36,000 in the year to December 2009, net immigration of less than 100,000 looks much harder to achieve.
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
Coalition cuts endanger the poorest children on UK roads
Recent announcements of the coalition government’s cuts threaten to significantly worsen the plight of Britain’s poorest and most underprivileged children. New research highlights how the inequitable nature in road safety afflicting children from the poorest parts of the country is set to get worse.
The Road Safety Analysis group found children from the poorest wards in Britain are disproportionately more prone to being the victims of road traffic accidents. They concluded that the riskiest area in the UK is Preston, where one child in every 206 is likely to be involved in a road collision annually.
Kensington and Chelsea is the safest place in the UK, with a risk of only one in 1,158. The national average is one in 427 children is injured or killed in a road accident each year.
Cuts announced by the coalition government to the Road Safety budget – amounting to £38 billion – will only exacerbate the situation and increase the danger on roads and highways in Britain’s poorest neighborhoods. Added to this, the government has also ceased central funding for speed cameras, with the result that councils up and down the country are being forced to majorly scale back or even scrap their speed enforcement measures.
There are 6,000 speed cameras in the UK. The financial sustainability of the system is now at serious risk. This year’s road safety budget is being cut by a shocking 40 per cent. This is made up of a 27 per cent cut to the revenue grant (with £20.6m being taken off a promised £76.7 million) and a 100 per cent cut to the capital grant (£17.2m). Both grants fund the maintenance and improvement of the speed cameras network.
These cuts are a reckless move by the coalition government, which undermines their claims to be following a progressive agenda. All the evidence points to the effectiveness of speed cameras in cutting road safety deaths, with Richard Allsop, professor of transport studies at University College London, stating there have been “substantial reductions” in casualties in the first five years of the roll-out of cameras:
“There is a bit of statistical debate about exactly how many, but the picture of a substantial reduction is quite undisputed and it’s consistent with measured reductions in speed at camera sites.”
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
There Is An Alternative
United Kingdom: UNISON North West believes that we should use every opportunity to challenge the prevailing mythology that the only way forward is massive cuts and unemployment on an unprecedented scale. Lots of information is available on the UNISON North West website. The country faced a tougher financial crisis in 1946 and the government created the NHS!
An Alternative to Cuts:
•At least £1.5bn could be raised this year by bringing back the windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses.
•£30bn could be raised every year by introducing a major financial transactions tax on Britain’s financial institutions – the Robin Hood tax.
•£4bn could be saved just this year by cancelling Trident.
•£500m could be saved every year by eradicating health-care-acquired infections from the NHS. The extra cleaners necessary would cost half this amount.
•£5bn could be raised every year with a tax on vacant dwellings.
•£2.8bn could be saved every year by ending the central government use of private management consultants.
•£3bn could be saved in user fees and interest charges every year if PFI schemes were replaced with conventional public procurement.
•£10bn could be raised every year by reforming tax havens and residence rules to reduce tax avoidance by corporations and non-domiciled residents.
•£4.7bn could be raised every year by introducing a 50% tax rate on incomes over £100,000.
……….and the list goes on.We need to challenge the assumption that there is nothing we can do about the threats to our members and our communities. The cuts are being delivered by a flaky coalition with no electoral mandate which might not last 18 months never mind 5 years and it has to be attacked at every level and using all methods we can bring to bear.
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
Government Fails to Support Vital Asbestos Research
( UNITED KINGDOM )Fears are growing that the callous coalition of millionaires Con-Dem Government are planning to renege on a commitment by the previous Labour Government that money would be invested into desperately needed medical research for mesothelioma, the incurable lung cancer.
In a statement on February 25th 2010 the then Justice Secretary Jack Straw said that the UK “must now become a global leader in research into asbestos related disease” and committed the Government to help create a National Centre for Asbestos Related Disease.(NCARD)
Despite over 2,000 people a year now dying from mesothelioma and it being the 12th most common killer of men and the cancer of most rapidly increasing incidence in women, there is little money spent on research into the disease.
However Stephen Hepburn Labour MP for Jarrow, received a highly negative reply from the Department of Health, when he asked whether the Government would support and provide funding for NCARD and how much would be spent on research into asbestos related diseases in the next three years.
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
New wave in Trade Unions
INDIA: “The all-India strike called by nine trade unions on September 7 is a new wave and initiative in the trade union movement,” he said, promising it will be “the biggest general strike in India.”
The strike, supported by the Intuc, has not been opposed by the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS).
Five crore workers are expected to participate in the 24-hour-strike which will result in losses of about Rs. 5,000 crore to industries and about Rs. 500 crore in wages for the workers.
“If the government does not heed our demands even after the strike the movement will be intensified.”
A “Parliament of Trade Unions” will be held sometime this winter as an alternative forum for the workers to address their concerns.
Mr. Dasgupta pointed out that the latest example of violation of labour laws can be witnessed in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi where minimum wages were not being paid to the migrant workers.
“The minimum wage in Delhi is Rs. 130, while the Centre's minimum wage is more than Rs. 200. Workers at the Commonwealth Games sites are paid between Rs. 80 and Rs. 90.”
Even though Biman Bose, chairman of the West Bengal Left Front Committee, at a function on Tuesday extended full support to the strike, Mr. Dasgupta insisted that the trade unions had not asked for support from any political party.
“We want a change in policy, not in the government,” he said.
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
United trade unions forum to be launched
KOLKATA: The emerging unity among the trade unions in the country will have an “institutional framework” with the launch of a united forum, Gurudas Dasgupta said on Wednesday.
“The working classes are not a priority in the agenda of the government,” said Mr. Dasgupta, the general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress and a senior MP of the Communist Party of India. Even in Parliament, the interests of the workers were being sidelined in favour of the capitalists. Over the past year, a movement for joint action had emerged among the trade unions and this unity will be institutionalised under the chairmanship of G. Sanjeeva Reddy, the president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), he said.
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
Labour law amended in INDIA.
GULBARGA ( India ): The amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, to further strengthen pro-worker clauses in the Act, heralds a new era for settlement of disputes and enforcement of decrees passed by Industrial Tribunals-cum-Labour Courts.
The Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2010, which was passed by the Rajya Sabha on August 3, was approved by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
One of the major changes brought about by the amendment is providing workers with direct access to labour courts or tribunals in case of individual disputes. It provides for the setting up of a grievance settlement machinery and empowers Industrial Tribunals-cum-Labour Courts to enforce the decrees passed.
Consultation
Union Labour and Employment Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge had taken an interest in amending the Act by further providing protective clauses for workers. He had initiated detailed consultations with the stakeholders before formulating the amendments
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
Sanitation staff launch stir for regularization
LUDHIANA: Irked over delay in regularization of sanitation employees, members of Balmiki Youth Federation and workers of sanitation committees blocked the traffic at Bharat Nagar Chowk on Monday. They alleged that the state government and Municipal Corporation officials were playing with their lives by not fulfilling their promises.
The regularization of the sanitation employees had been hanging fire for the last two years but despite notifications and preparation of the lists, the authorities had not regularized even a single employee. The authorities even cancelled the lists saying they were not up to the mark. The employees demanded for the regularization of around 3,400 employees immediately. Warning the authorities for regularizing the employees as soon as possible, the staff said otherwise they would launch a stir. The members informed that in every public meeting, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal promised to appoint the employees. "We would continue our protest until we would get our right and regularization takes place," said Pardeep Bohad.
Read more: Sanitation staff launch stir for regularization - Ludhiana - City - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ludhiana/Sanitation-staff-launch-stir-for-regularization/articleshow/6160182.cms#ixzz0yMv3HkXk
Upload Date:
2010-09-02
Depression and unpaid wages add to woes of trapped miners in Chile
Chile:There isn't yet a tunnel, let alone light at the end of it, but rescue workers in northern Chile have at last begun drilling the hole they hope will eventually provide an escape route for 33 miners who have been trapped half a mile beneath the surface for almost four weeks.A 31-tonne excavator made a shallow "test hole" yesterday in some of the solid rock it must bore through to reach the workers, who survived 17 days without contact from the outside world but have now received supplies of food, water, clothing and medicine.It will take at least a week for the initial pilot hole to be drilled to the chamber where the men are trapped. After that, larger drill bits will be installed to gradually widen the tunnel until it is roughly the size of a bicycle wheel, at which point the evacuation process can commence.
The men will be pulled to the surface, one by one, in a small escape pod, which will take roughly an hour to reach ground level. They have been told that it could take until Christmas for them to be freed, though some experts said yesterday that if there are no complications it could in theory be over in two months.
Either way, the 33 miners have now been trapped underground in the hot and damp chamber longer than anyone in the history of their profession. Five of the group are said to be suffering from depression, although they have been sent pharmaceuticals and allowed brief conversations with their families to help cheer them up.
Adding to their woes are growing concerns about the men's livelihoods once they do return to the surface. San Esteban, the small company which operates the gold and silver mine, says it has no money to continue paying their wages, let alone cope with the lawsuits that will inevitably arise from the ordeal. It is not even participating in the rescue, which is being run by Codelco, a state-run mining firm.
Union leaders have called on the government to pay compensation to the men, together with roughly 270 other employees of San Esteban who are now out of work. They blame the accident on poor regulation, pointing out that the mine was allowed to remain open despite repeated safety violations which led to the death of a miner in 2007.
"We want the government to pay our salaries in full until our comrades are freed and then pay our severances," said the union leader Evelyn Olmos. The Mining minister, Laurence Golborne, said however that labour laws forbade his administration from making such payments, and that the issue would have to be worked out in Chilean courts.
It is yet another worry for families of the trapped men, who are able to communicate with their loved ones through written notes and occasional telephone conversations which are carried out via three six-inch wide communication tubes which have been drilled into the area where they are trapped.
When the Strata excavator, which has been imported from Australia, completes its initial pilot hole, the men will have to begin assisting their own rescue. An estimated 4,000 tonnes of debris will fall into a mine shaft near their chamber, and they will have to help clear it from the mouth of the tunnel.
"The thing that concerns me is the welfare of the workers, their mental state. That will be real tough," said Alex Gryska, a mine rescue manager with the Canadian government. "From a health perspective, it's hot down there. They're talking about working 24/7 in 85 degrees for two months. Their mental state for that work will be critical."
