construction
Death sparks building worker riot in Delhi
After a fatal accident on the Commonwealth Games construction site more than thousand building workers destroyed company offices, cars and trucks.
The aggravating global crisis imposes a new social frame-work for incidents like this: the daily deaths and legal murders become explosive.
The cops shooting a fifteen year old became the trigger of social unrest in Greece, the fatal accident of a building worker sparked the simmering unrest.
Construction workers occupy factory in Chicago
Angry United Electrical union members, including many immigrants, have occupied their Chicago window factory demanding an improved severance package.
They are demanding the government help out struggling workers and that their employer, Republic Windows, award the workers a severance package as well as compensating them for unused vacation hours.
Workers who got three days notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won't go home without assurances they'll get severance and vacation pay.
Long lost wildcat strikes in the UK, 1960s - 1990s
Interesting article with snippets of analysis and often personal anecdotes about a number of unofficial strikes in the UK since the 1960s.
An introduction…
Protesters occupy their Dublin union offices
Following a dispute with union management, members of the Building and Allied Trades Union occupy and barricade the central offices.
A high court judge yesterday waded into the dispute, issuing an injunction ordering the union members to vacate the premises and dismantle a brick wall they had erected across the entrance.
Wildcat strikes hit Plymouth and Falkirk
Workers at a new nuclear power station in Plymouth and coach builders Alexander Dennis in Falkirk were both on wildcat strike this week.
Sixteen staff were laid off from the Langage power station construction site near Plymouth, and picketed the site on Thursday morning, bringing 350 workers out in support by shift start.
The Ecological Challenge: Three Revolutions are Necessary
With a planetary ecological crisis on hand, it can no longer be denied that socialism will be incompatible with mass production and mass consumption. Indeed, even without returning to Malthusian catastrophe theories, we are forced to admit that the planet’s resources are not inexhaustible. These resources could provide for humanity’s needs, but only if they are used in a reasonable and rational way, i.e., in a manner directly opposed to capitalist logic, which in itself is a source of imbalance.
The Ecological Challenge: Three Revolutions are Necessary
by Alternative Libertaire
Building Worker newsletter - Autumn 2007
Newsletter containing articles on organising site workers ahead of the Olympics, fighting the blacklist in Manchester, pay and holiday pay, a recent strike against racism and the dangers of trusting union officials.
If you want or need help organizing and would like to meet rank and file union members with enough experience of how to help and advise you. Phone UK R&F BWC on 07942 252280. We’ll gladly meet you in a pub or anywhere else you choose after work near your site for a chat.
300-strong wildcat in Milford Haven ends
Workers at South Hook LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) have gone back to work following a 26-hour stoppage in support of a colleague who claims to have suffered from racial abuse on site.
The Western Telegraph reports:
Three hundred men working for Shaw stopped working at 10 am on Thursday, and marched on the offices of main contractors Chicago Bridge and Iron. The men came out in support of fellow worker, Omar Mohamed, who alleges that he has suffered racial harassment from workers from another company sub contracting to CB&I.
UK: Two fatal accidents at construction sites this weekend
A 20-year-old man has been killed on a construction site on Plymouth, just one day after a similar accident took the life of an 18-year-old in Scotland.
In the latest incident, a worker on a Kier Western site at Cattedown Enterprise Centre was hit on the head by a skip or pallet of bricks, according to the Plymouth Herald. It is believed that the man was walking under a telehandler carrying the bricks when the accident happened.
Canada: carpenter's wildcat spreads to other workers
250 carpenters at the Petro-Canada site launched the wildcat strike after their planned strike was banned by anti-union laws.
The region's 4000 carpenters are asking for a rise equal to that earned by metal-workers earlier in the summer. According to Martyn Piper of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ) some 20 issues have been resolved during negotiations and that the only disagreement is over a wage increase.
1886: The Bay View Massacre
The little known history of the massacre that occurred in Milwaukee, when 7,000 building workers and 5,000 Polish workers demanded the eight-hour work day.
The deadly stand-off between workers and the National Guard was the culmination of events that began on Saturday May 1, 1886.
A historical marker, pictured above, is located at Russel and Superior on Jones Island in Bay View. It commemorates the Bay View Massacre.
‘General strike’ spreads across Peru
As an indefinite teachers strike continues into its 12th day, farmers, miners and construction workers joined the protests, with one farmer shot dead by police.
The latest death brings the reported death toll to 4 over the last week in what has been described by some media as a general strike. The strike began when the teachers union struck against a new law requiring all teachers to sit regular competency exams (libcom.org coverge here).
China: Workers in Guangdong attacked for asking to be paid
Construction workers building a dam near Heyuan, were attacked after demanding payment, having gone four months without wages.
Some 300-400 workers at the site, currently building a hydro-electric power station, went on strike last Friday in protest at the massive wage arrears. Some 200 hired thugs then attacked the workers. Lei Mingzhong, is reported to be in a coma and brain dead and acccording to doctors has no chance of recovery. Many other workers were injured in the clashes.
Sweden: European Court sets precedent on foreign workers
The European Advocate General, Paolo Mengozzi advised the European Court of Justice that companies should respect local pay and conditions when hiring foreign workers.
The case began in 2004 when a Lithuanian company, Laval, entered the building trade, winning a string of contracts in Sweden. The company, then best known for producing cake, based its strategy on the importation of cheap Latvian labour. Laval argued that as Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage this was entirely legal.
Sweden: Migrant workers "used as slaves"
Young British men are being used as 'slave labourers' in Stockholm, police have said. The men are being used in building work, and according to reports they are paid only sporadically and live in squalor.
thelocal.se reported:
Cambodia: Garment workers threaten strikes
Garment workers are trying to prevent large pay cuts. At the same time building workers have gone on strike in support of sacked colleagues.
The garment workers are threatening strikes in reaction to governement proposals to change the law that compels employers to pay double wages for night work. By cutting this premium by 70% the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, claims he will be able to create tens of thousands of new jobs. The industry is currently responsible for US$2.3bn worth of exports yearly, almost 80% of the total.
Egyptian cement workers refuse buy-out and propose self-management
The Cement workers in Tora, Helwan and Suez are refusing an early buyout scheme their Italian management is currently drafting, with the aim of cutting down the labor force.
Instead the workers want to buy the shares of the foreign management, and are proposing they (the workers) run the company themselves, promising to bring down the cement market price from LE400 per ton (expected to rise soon to LE600) to LE200.
Strikes in Egypt spread from centre of gravity
The longest and strongest wave of worker protest since the end of World War II is rolling through Egypt. In March, the liberal daily al-Masri al-Yawm estimated that no fewer than 222 sit-in strikes, work stoppages, hunger strikes and demonstrations had occurred during 2006.
Take from Middle East Report Online
In the first five months of 2007, the paper has reported a new labour action nearly every day. The citizen group Egyptian Workers and Trade Union Watch documented 56 incidents during the month of April, and another 15 during the first week of May alone.[1]
Narita Airport riots (video clip)
A video of the riots against the construction of Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan during the 1970s.
The video is hosted on YouTube and has English subtitles. The riots included students and farmers protesting against the airport's construction, and involved pitched battles against the police with molotov cocktails and explosives.
Freemasonry - its historic role
A brief history of the development of freemasonry, its relationship to politics, its mythology and its practice.
Freemasonry has long had a relationship to the politics of both left and right. Bourgeois revolutionaries in France and America and modern mainstream politicians have all been members, as were some founding members of the 1st International.
From; "The Wordworth Dictionary of the Occult"; Andre Nataf, Wordworth, 1991.
