South Africa’s Unions May Strike during World Cup
Unions representing South Africa’s public employees will consider striking during the soccer World Cup, unless an independent mediator helps to end a wage dispute with the government,  the Public Servants Association said. Government negotiators offered to raise wages for about one million workers, including nurses and teachers, by 5.3 percent from July 1, increasing its previous offer  of 5.2 percent. The unions reduced their pay demand to 10.5 percent from 11 percent. The mediator has 30 days to end the impasse.

The soccer World Cup, the world’s most watched sporting event, is due to kick off on June 11. The government expects about 300,000 international visitors to attend the 32-nation tournament, which is being held in Africa for the first time. South Africa’s  state-owned transportation company, Transnet Ltd.,  has proposed increasing workers’ pay by 11 percent in a bid to end a strike that began on May10.

“If there is no solution of the wage dispute, unions will then ballot their members on whether to strike,” said Manie Clercq, the association’s deputy general manager. “If the strike goes ahead, it will be in the middle of the World Cup.”

Spain’s Unions to Battle Pay Cuts for Civil Servants
Spanish unions promised on May 20 to fight austerity moves in the courts after the socialist government introduced a cut in public sector wages through a royal decree, bypassing parliament. The UGT union, which was already planning a public sector strike on June 8, said it would contest the legality of such  budget cuts, estimated at 15 billion euros (US $18.52 billion) that were announced last week.

“We are without doubt going to challenge this royal deree,” said Julio Lacuerda, a representative of Spain’s second largest union, UGT,  at a news conference, after meeting government officials to receive the details of the pay reductions. “This is a complete mockery of our legal right to bargain,” added Enrique Foussoul of the Commissiones Obreras, Spain’s largest union.

The government approved the austerity plan at its weekly cabinet meeting. An average 5 percent pay decrease this year will go into effect on June 1. The package of cuts is aimed  at accelerating the reduction of the public deficit. Traders have fretted that Spain could enter a debt spiral like Greece, as it grapples with a budget deficit that swelled to 11.2 percent of the nation’s gross national product.

British Unions Gear Up to Defend Safety and Health Standards
Warned by hints in the British media that the new Conservative-Liberal coalition may try to undermine labor legislation, unions   will be taking steps to protect safety and health standards. They are being helped by  a pro-labor magazine, Hazards, which in its April-June edition, produced  a stark new poster, which reads: “We didn’t vote to die at work.” The magazine promises to provide unions and campaigners with “the ammunition” they need to defend workplace safety and health standards.

Government figures for 2008/2009 show that 1.2 million people who worked during  that year were suffering from an illness (long-standing, as well as new cases) they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. A total of 551,000  were new cases.

In addition, 180 workers were killed on the job during that one year,  A total of 29.3 million working days were lost, 24.6 million due to work-related ill health and 4.7 million due to workplace injury.

Protests by Egyptian Workers Continue to Spread
Anger is mounting among Egyptian workers as they take their protests to the steps of parliament and use street theater to dramatize their complaints about unpaid wages. A group of workers from the Amonsito Textile Company, who have not received their back pay for months, tore off their clothes on May 20 in an attempt to gain attention. Meanwhile, workers from a telephone equipment factory organized a mock funeral  and lowered an effigy representing Egyptian companies into a grave.

About 300 Amonsito workers condemned the lack of action on an agreement signed last month, stipulating that they would receive their severance pay for their lost jobs, but instead they got only half the amount.

Eight workers from the telephone  equipment factory have been continuing their hunger strike, demanding their severance pay packages, while hundreds of workers from the Egyptian Copper Company staged a sit-in in Tebbeen, demanding higher wages.

Union Demands State-Control of Arcelor/Mittal’s Algerian Plant
The union at Arcelor/Mittall’s Algerian factory said on May 20 that it would strike unless the firm gives the state a controlling  stake in the plant or the government nationalizes it.  The Algiers  government has been taking an increasingly nationalistic line in its economic policies, including a campaign to take control over the country’s biggest mobile phone operator from Egypt’s Orascom Telecom.

Arcelor/Mittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, bought a 70 percent share of the previously state-owned El-Hadjar steel plant in October 2001, with Algerian state-owned steelmaker SIDER retaining a 30 percent share. Smain Kouadria, head of the union that represents most of the 7,200 employees in the plant, said management was not respecting  a government recommendation that the workers be given a pay increase of between 13 and 20 percent.

“The first option is to open the capital so that the government can exercise control over management, and if that’s not possible, the second option is to nationalize the plant,” Kouadria said. He added: “We will go on general strike if the firm continues to ignore our demands.”

A Huge Rally in Romanian Capital to Protest Big Pay and Pension Cuts
Some 40,000 Romanians rallied in Bucharest, the nation’s capital,  on May 19 to protest pay and pension cuts the government says are needed to shore up the ailing economy. The protesters blew whistles and yelled: “Down with the lying government,” while blocking traffic in the city for two hours. Union leader Iacob  Baciu said they would call a general strike on May 31 if the government went ahead with plans to cut public wages by a quarter and pensions by 15 percent.

Despite the pandemonium outside his office, Prime Minister Emil Boc said he would ask Parliament to approve the cuts, that would go into effect on June 1, calling them “the only viable solution for the country’s future.” Romania’s economy shrank 7.1 percent last year, and the government was compelled to take out a loan of 20 billion euros (US $24.66 billion), from the International Monetary Fund, European Union and World Bank, to pay state wages.

Romania’s Finance Minister has said that 70,000 of the state’s 1.36 million jobs will have to be eliminated by 2011 in this nation of 22 million where the average monthly wage is about 450 euros (US $575).