English

Some 400 strikers fought overnight with police who tried to prevent them occupying group headquarters.

Workers at Carsud, the bus transport system for the capital Nouméa and surrounding areas, went on strike over the dismisal of a colleague for gross misconduct. Workers began a general strike, rotating between different regions, on January 9th.

Some 200 police were sent against the strikers occupying the buildings at around 2am. Workers picketing the roundabout were attacked with tear gas grenades, rubber bullets and batons. Those who couldn't get away in time claim to have been beaten in the back of the police vans.

120 people were present at the demonstration commemorating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the gates of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on January 19th. After the eleven demonstrators were arrested by Naval Base security, six other demonstrators blocked the highway entrance to the base with a banner which stated, “Abolish Nuclear Weapons.” The six were arrested by Kitsap County Sheriffs.

Demonstrators also hung a large banner over the entrance to the Trident submarine base which stated, "Share the Dream of a World without War."

Employees and union officials from Cadbury's chocolate factory at Keynsham have been out campaigning and urging people to boycott the firm's products.

A demonstration was held outside Asda, Longwell Green, to get the protest message across.

Earlier this week it was confirmed plans to shut the factory and move production to Poland would go ahead.

Fourteen, mostly female, striking workers required treatment after police charged their blockades.

The, mostly female, striking workers were injured at the Miko factory in Saint-Dizier on Tuesday. Police were sent in after workers had confined the manager, Prakash Patel, to his office the previous day and occupied the site. The ice cream manufacturer recently announced a restructuring plan which will see 254 of the 493 employees lose their jobs.

Police denied the use of excessive force, claiming that only ten officers were sent in against 40-60 strikers and that they were unarmed, not even carrying matraques (batons). According to the spokesman police were 'only' carrying tonfas, pictured above.

Management has since offered redundancy packages of one month's salary for each year of service. The unions have rejected this offer as unsatisfactory. Hervé Mazelin, CGT shop steward at Miko, sais "between Kléber at Toul and Arcelor at Gandrange, over 2 000 jobs are going in a 200 km radius. Most of these workers are 45-50 year old women. Where will they find new jobs?"

More miners joined a hunger strike being held in the Budryk mine yesterday. 34 miners are on hunger strike - 30 are 1050 meters below ground in the occupied mine and 4 more above ground. The hunger strike started six days ago with four miners and has spread.

Currently about 150 miners are occupying the mine 700 meters below ground with an additional 200 miners occupying it above.

On Sunday afternoon two of the miners occupying the mine underground felt faint and had to be evacuated. An ambulance was called. One of the hunger strikers had to be hospitalized. According to the strike committee, the action is taking its toll on the health of the miners.

Currently there are many labour conflicts in Poland, including various forms of strikes and protest. Almost 20 years after Poland's transition to a market economy, labour unrest is still strongest in the budget sector and in state-owned companies.

Over 12,000 Polish teachers from around the country protested in Warsaw yesterday. They demand pay raises, retaining beneficial retirement rights and refraining from introducing education vouchers.

The education ministry has already proposed a 200-zloty or 10% raise. The representatives of the Association of Polish Teachers, however, are demanding a pay rise of 50% or 600 zlotys for teachers in training and 1100 zlotys for fully qualified teachers.

Also, the teachers demand that the government give up their plans to decentralise the system of teachers' salaries.

If the demands are not taken into consideration Polish teachers will stage another protest during high school graduation exams in May – this time without a time limit.

Hundreds of Ukrainians on Thursday pulled down barriers to a border crossing with Poland blocked by protesters over a European Union visa row as Ukraine's parliamentary speaker called for measures to ease travel to Poland for Ukrainian citizens. According to Polish news agency PAP, Arseni Jazenjuk asked his Polish counterpart Bronislav Komorovski in a letter to speed up work on an agreement over border traffic with Poland. The agreement would enable the inhabitants of the border region to travel into the neighbouring country without a visa.

Since Poland joined the European Union's Schengen Zone on December 21, Ukrainians have had to pay 35 euros (51 dollars) for a visa to visit the neighbouring country, while travel had previously been free.

Massive local and international protest has stopped a Malaysian company’s plan to grow oil palms on nearly all of a pristine Papua-New Guinean island.
The PNG agriculture minister, John Hickey, who first approved the plan has now confirmed that it’s been dropped. The palm oil was to be exported for agrofuel production.

The Malaysian Vitroplant Ltd. had intended to clear away 60,000 hectares of rain forest on the island of Woodlark, which lies about 280 kilometres from Papua New Guinea and has a total area of about 85,000 hectares.

The 6,000 islanders would have lost their culture, their hunting grounds and their lands for growing food. The palm plantation would have destroyed almost all the still intact flatland rain forest of the island and with it a breathtaking biodiversity. Marine life along the island’s coasts would also have been destroyed by wastes produced by the palm oil project.

18th January 1934 - the aborted general strike - was the "final stand" of independent class-oriented, anarchist-inspired syndicalism in Portugal.

Portugal had been governed by a fascist dictatorship since the 28th May 1926 coup. This military coup put Salazar in power, first as finance minister, but very soon he took control of the whole government, becoming President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) till his accidental fall from a reclining chair in his residence in the Summer 1968.

Wei Wenhua (41), who was filming clashes between villagers and officials on his camera phone, died after a beating from the goverment officials.

Mr Wenhua was attacked on Monday in the village of Wanba, outside of Tianmen City in the central Hubei province. Villagers were protesting against the dumping of rubbish on a wasteland site by their homes by the city's refuse service, claiming it was polluting the air and local water supply. Villagers, who had demanded that dumping licenses not be renewed, resorted to direct action to prevent the trucks dumping waste and there were clashes between villagers and 50 urban administrative inspectors who had come to enforce the dumping. At least five villagers were injured.

Workers from the threatened Cadbury factory at Somerdale, which makes Cadbury Mini Eggs, Crunchie and Fudge bars, have called for a boycott of all Cadbury products in protest against the planned closure of their plant.

Their call has been backed by their union Unite the union after a campaign meeting last night demanded an escalation of activity. The boycott of all Cadbury products will start in the Bristol and Bath area. Unite leaders said it will then be rolled out to other areas where Cadbury operates and union members across the UK will also be urged to support it.

"If Bristol and Bath become a 'Cadbury-free zone' that will hit their brands, undermine the board and shareholders should start asking serious questions about what is happening," said Lydia Hayes, Unite regional organiser. "Consumers should be told that by moving production to Poland Cadbury are adding millions of food miles to their products so creating more environmental damage and adding to global warming."

Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.

The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state.

Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces.

Microsoft submitted a patent application in the US for a “unique monitoring system” that could link workers to their computers. Wireless sensors could read “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure”, the application states.

Today 50 miners' wives and representatives of the union August '80 came to Warsaw ti try ti speak to Minister Pawlak. Pawlak went to a church event in Lublin instead. He commented that "the wives came for nothing" and "this isn't the PRL". "You can't give raises to those who scream the loudest," he said. The miners' wives wanted to present a petition and letter to Pawlak and speak to him about the situation in the mine. They claim that Pawlak only hears one side of the story.

The women were invited to the Center for Social Dialogue where they spoke to some members of the Ministry. A few were also invited to meet with the president's wife. The Law and Justice Party, and in particular president Lech Kaczynski, a former professor of labour law, are interested in meeting with all sorts of striking workers in order to present themselves as the opposition to the strict neoliberal politics of Civic Platform and its government.

At Budryk, 150 miners are occupying the mine 700 meters underground. 10 miners have gone on hunger strike. Yesterday one miner fainted and had to be evacuated.

This is the link for the Outside of EUrope documentary made at the NoBorder camp last summer in Ukraine. Please pass it on.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5780545896985559139