Experiments with truth: 7/2/09
A general strike — called in response to the death of the protesters — brought life to a standstill Tuesday in Srinagar and other towns in the Kashmir valley.
- In a major victory for the Hartmarx workers in Chicago who voted to sit-in and occupy their workplace if Wells Fargo closed their plant, the 125-year-old suitmaker’s new owner promised to keep the factories open and not outsource the company’s 4,000 jobs this week.
- A general strike in Niger was partially supported yesterday, as many civil servants and shop owners stayed away from work to protest President Mamadou Tandja, who recently suspended the constitution in a bid to cling to power.
- On Tuesday, the Israeli military forcibly boarded the Free Gaza boat, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, and kidnapped 21 human rights workers and journalists who were on their way to deliver much needed humanitarian and reconstruction supplies to besieged Gaza.
- Union employees at two top Puerto Rican newspapers, El Nuevo Día and El Vocero, have agreed to strike in protest against proposed concessions and outsourcing moves by the two papers
- Ministry of Transport officials in Peru and the leaders of the association of mass urban transport companies began talks yesterday, following the strike in Lima of approximately 260,000 private-sector bus and taxi drivers over a new transport law that sharply increases traffic fines.
- At the annual Cisco Live event in San Francisco, the keynote speech by Cisco Systems chief executive John Chambers was interrupted by a group of demonstrators from the SEIU who were laid off from janitorial positions at the company’s headquarters.
