How many workers have gone on strike in the U.K. this year and how does that number compare to recent years? Well, it turns out the British government has kept close track of these kinds of things, and the numbers are pretty shocking. According to Bloomberg News:

In the year through May, 352,000 workers went on strike, continuing a surge that began last year as government-funded workers challenged a clampdown on pay increases. In the year to May 2008, 638,000 workers took industrial action, according to the Office for National Statistics. That compares with the annual average of 201,600 through the 1990s, it said. That’s below the 1980s annual average of 1.04 million.

The article also managed to collect estimates of the financial toll of several recent strikes, which clearly demonstrate just how challenging such nonviolent action can be to both governments and corporations.

Strikes by British government workers this summer, protesting a squeeze on public spending, may end up costing at least 400 million pounds ($658 million), with the latest action by postal workers starting today.

[...]

Protests in 2007 at the government-owned mail carrier cost the London economy 300 million pounds, according to the city’s Chamber of Commerce. In June, a two-day London Underground strike cost the economy 100 million pounds, the chamber said.

[...]

A protest over the use of foreign workers at a Total SA site in eastern England cost the company 100 million euros ($141 million) in extra costs after a June settlement, said the company, Europe’s largest oil refiner.

How do these numbers compare to the United States? After a little digging, I found that the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics does keep track of what they call “major work stoppages,” which include lockouts and strikes that involve more than 1,000 workers. Limiting their records to such large actions no doubt dramatically undercounts the number of workers who go on strike in the U.S. every year, but the official statistics are still quite telling, especially when compared to figures from Britain. According to a Department of Labor press release from February, “Major work stoppages idled 72,000 workers for nearly 2 million work days in 2008.”

But why are so many more workers willing to strike in Britain than the U.S.? One place to start in looking for an explanation is the state of organized labor in both countries. As the Bloomberg article points out: “Currently, 29 percent of workers [in the U.K.] belong to a union, including three in five workers in the public sector and one in five at private companies.”  Union membership in the U.S., on the other hand, peaked at 36 percent in the mid-1950s and has since fallen to dismal levels. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12.4 percent of the overall workforce and only 7.6 percent of the private sector was unionized in 2008.

Hundreds of protesters marched on the Philippines Congress yesterday as President Gloria Arroyo prepared to defend her corruption-laden record in the last state of the nation address before elections next year.

• More than 20,000 people rallied in Kilmarnock, Scotland to protest the loss of around 900 jobs at a Johnny Walker whiskey bottling plant.

• Dozens rallied in Jackson Heights, Queens on Sunday, following reports of two recent alleged attacks against transgender women, to demand that Albany pass legislation to stop the violence.

• A dozen Greenpeace activists have chained themselves to a Ministry of Natural Resources building in Quebec City yesterday to protest the destruction of intact forests.

• The leader of a grassroots organization protesting rising health insurance premiums by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield was arrested on Friday when he attempted to enter the insurer’s headquarters.

• Residents of Myrtle Beach protested rate hikes and plans for a new coal-fired power plant at a board meeting of utility company Santee Cooper yesterday.

• A small group of protesters in Corpus Christi took to the streets Sunday night to oppose plans for a non-renewable energy plant.

• Relatives of missing persons are staging a four-day sit-in in front of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to press for a resolution and for the release of a student.

The Center for the Study of Strategic Nonviolent Defense (CSSND) just put out this interview with Gene Sharp, the most influential advocate of strategic nonviolence alive today, as a response to claims by the governement in Tehran and some on the left that he is somehow behind the recent nonviolent uprising against Ahmadinejad.

In the video, which includes subtitles in Farsi, Sharp chuckles at the idea that his work is supported or funded by the CIA. “Well, you’ve seen our office,” he says. “You can see how well-funded we are.”

Sharp, who is now 81-years old, proceeds to give a brief overview of his thoughts on the power of nonviolent struggle and some generic strategic advice to Iranian resisters.

“I dream that the oppressed people of the world will be able to learn from the available records and new experiences that this type of nonviolent struggle can be used to liberate all oppression and replace military and violent conflicts, that you won’t have to carry on struggles against terrorism anymore because the people who might have become terrorists have instead chosen to use this kind of struggle to help out the oppressed people. This can change political systems throughout the world,” Sharp concludes.

I’ve read several books by Gene Sharp and have read with interest his critics as well. While I have no doubt that his writing have found a ready audience in Iran, the arguments against him appear to be specious. From the best that I can tell, Sharp seems to be merely a proponent of nonviolent methods of struggle, who believes that we would be better off if all sides of every conflict would abstain from violence. Promoting nonviolent techniques only fom a strategic perspective, however, means that they can very well be used for causes that progressives abhor – which is one of the problems with his approach. For proponents of principled nonviolence, like Gandhi and King, fighting for a just cause was just as important as what methods are employed.

To read probably the most detailed defense of Gene Sharp, check out Stephen Zunes’ article over at Foreign Policy In Focus.

As a side note, there is next to nothing on the internet about the organization that made this video. Here is what I could find:

CSSND, which has only been in existence for little more than a year and a half,  bills itself as “a virtual center that represents an international network of researchers, translators, writers and activists with the common goal of promoting the education of nonviolent action as the most effective method of causing social change” in Iran. They do this by analyzing the effectiveness of nonviolent strategies and tactics, publishing their findings in Farsi and getting them into the hands of Iranian activists.  The backbone of CSSND’s curriculum is “based on the latest edition of Center for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS)’s Student Curriculum.”

Their site does not mention anyone who is involved with the organization by name, and does not disclose its sources of funding. They do, however, mention a working relationship with Voice of America, which suggests that they may be recieving funding from the US. While it may make sense to not provide a list of who is running the organization due to the repression in Iran, they could go a long way to undermining the claims of conspiracy theorists by being more transparent about who is backing them.

Border activists from No More Deaths met with Ken Salazar and the Department of the Interior last week to discuss DOI’s escalating policy of issuing littering tickets to humanitarian aid workers.  There is no official word from the meeting, but representatives from No More Deaths at the meeting expressed there was support from Salazar for finding a solution.  The request from DOI to meet with No More Deaths follows on the heels of the humanitarian group’s announcement to resume distributing water on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Reserve (BANWR).

On July 9, forty humanitarian volunteers returned the BANWR to place water along the deadly migrant trails that cross the refuge.  No More Deaths reports that:

Thirteen humanitarian volunteers received littering tickets after putting out gallon jugs of life-saving water intended for migrants crossing the US/Mexico border.

The citations took place on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which extends 30 miles north from the border in southern Arizona near the small town of Arivaca. The refuge is in a very active migrant corridor.

The weekend’s weather forecast calls for temperatures reaching 110-degrees in southern Arizona. June and July are the deadliest months for individuals attempting the trek through the desert.

Members from three humanitarian aid groups—No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans and Humane Borders—attempted to place gallon jugs of drinking water at four locations on trails that migrants follow when crossing the border.

One volunteer reflected on the day’s actions and attempts to provide water for migrants.

Gathered in a circle, Rev. John Fife reminded us of our community’s commitment and responsibility to provide humanitarian aid everywhere that it is needed. We recalled two important anniversaries for human rights: the nearly 20 years that have now passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the arrest of two of our volunteers exactly four years prior to the day. The gathering ended with a prayer led by Rev. Gene Lefebvre, summoning strength for volunteers, relief for migrants on the trails at that moment, and the ability to preserve our desert with the end of deadly border policies.

[...]  After nearly four hours we gathered again, this time on the side of the road, to celebrate the courageous resistance of 13 people of conscience and the communities that stand with them. As the caravan departed in mid-afternoon, we left hopeful and still committed, yet at the same time saddened, as dozens of life-giving jugs of water sat confiscated as ‘evidence of a crime’ in the back of a truck instead of on the migrant trail where it is so desperately needed. We also left burdened by the knowledge that, as weekend desert temperatures reach 112 degrees, we will soon hear the news of the next unnecessary deaths that will undoubtedly come. Indeed, as our migrant brothers and sisters continue on this journey, forced to cross in more dangerous areas, we must keep the resolve to continue this work by their side.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” has made a name for himself by being tougher on prisoners than on crime. Since 1993, he has overseen law enforcement and county jails in Maricopa County, Arizona, an area of nearly four million people that includes Phoenix. William Finnegan profiles (subscription only) the 77-year-old sheriff in The New Yorker’s July 20 issue.

Arpaio seems to delight in dehumanizing others. After winning his first election in 1993, he built a tent-city jail in an area where temperatures can rise to 135 degrees. He banned cigarettes, hot lunches, coffee, and salt and pepper, rejecting a study he had commissioned when it found harsh jail conditions ineffective at reducing recidivism. He gave inmates just two meals a day, each at 30 cents a head. He instituted black-and-white striped uniforms, but added pink underwear and pink socks. Several times he humiliated prisoners by marching them between facilities in the pink underwear alone. The prisoners nicknamed him “Hitler.”

Deaths and injuries in Arpaio’s jails have already cost Maricopa County taxpayers $43 million in court and settlement expenses. Arpaio’s officers have used stun guns against prisoners who were already immobilized in restraint chairs. As Finnegan writes, “The Phoenix New Times found that, between 2004 and 2008, the county jails of New York, Chicago, Los Angles, and Houston, which together house more than six times as many inmates as Maricopa, were sued a total of forty-three times. During the same period, Arpaio’s department was sued over jail conditions almost twenty-two hundred times in federal district court.”

Inmates in Maricopa County’s jails have shaken off the threat of retaliation and engaged in civil disobedience. In one of the largest US prison hunger strikes this past Cinco de Mayo, 500 inmates refused the morning meal and 900 refused the evening meal. Activists outside the jails have organized candlelight vigils, written letters, demonstrated at county meetings, and picketed Arpaio’s offices. On February 28, the National Day Laborers Organizing Network and El Puente Arizona organized a “March to Stop the Hate” focusing on Arpaio’s treatment of undocumented immigrants. Some 3,000 people rallied in downtown Phoenix.

Zack de la Rocha, of Rage Against the Machine, spoke at that march:

In the latest Arpaio investigation, the US Department of Justice is reviewing his discriminatory profiling in the arrest and treatment of possibly undocumented people. Perhaps we might one day thwart this mockery of a ‘public safety’ official, who takes pride in the detestable quality of his jail food and in situating his open-air tent-city jail beside a dump, who diverts limited county dollars away from investigating violent crime or even responding promptly to emergency calls, to instead raid workplaces in search of undocumented yet taxpaying immigrants.

Who the real “criminal” is, one hardly has to wonder.

• More than 3,000 villagers in eastern China blocked a highway and clashed with police while protesting alleged official corruption in a land compensation deal. One resident said thousands of people had been staging a sit-in on the land for nearly a week.

• A group of about 200 protesters from labor unions went to Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s office on Friday, demanding higher pay for city construction projects.

• Police used percussion grenades and fired into the air to disperse a protest that drew an estimated 1,000 people to the local mayor’s office in Kyrgyzstan after elections last week that opposition candidates say was rigged.

• Union leaders for Hyundai Motors in India said that over 90 percent of the company’s 1,600 workers at a factory near Chennai resorted to a sit-in strike last week in their ongoing labor dispute.

• The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe has declared itself unsatisfied with the pay raise proposed by the government to teachers and other public employees, saying its members will continue to boycott classes on Fridayspending a better offer from the state.

• In India, prisoners at Kalyan jail, tired of alleged harassment and corruption by the jail staff, have decided to go on an indefinite hunger strike to mark their protest against the unpalatable and unhygienic food.

• A strike called by separatists to protest the arrest of their leaders shut down parts of revolt-hit Indian Kashmir on Saturday.

• The New York City Anti-Violence Project, an LGBT advocacy organization devoted to the prevention of violence held a rally in Queens, New York yesterday to protest the rising numbers of queer bashings in the area.

• At a protest in Haiti, about 1,500 supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide carried pictures of the bespectacled leader and sang ”Happy Birthday” at his Port-au-Prince house last week, while denouncing President Rene Preval, a former ally they now consider a traitor for not bringing Aristide home.

What is the architecture of imagination that makes the horror of war seem possible, sensible, and coherent? This week at Religion Dispatches, I review a new book that takes important steps toward an answer: Antoine Bousquet’s The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity.

Soldiers stake their lives on a cosmic wager that what they undertake is equal to the ante. Commanders must orchestrate performances more compelling than theater and more sacred than peace, all the while inflicting as much damage as possible. The sum resources of a culture—its science, its religion, its poetry, its prejudice—mobilize in the service of that cause. These are as much the technologies of war as the weapons themselves.

While Bousquet’s analysis focuses on the uses of scientific knowledge, my essay explores how his approach could expand to include the religious.

It is common to think of religion as a primitive form of science, one that asks virtually the same questions and plays a commensurate role in the life of societies. To be sure, there is a vast religious prehistory to be written that would carry The Cosmic Way of Warfare farther back than Newton. But Newton—an alchemist obsessed with decoding prophecy—hardly spelled a definite break in which the religious transmuted into the scientific. And religious ways of warfare hardly disappeared as scientific ones arose. A fuller cosmology of warfare would embrace both. Religion and science each provide resources for thinking through the chaos of combat.

Read more over at Religion Dispatches.

In an effort to prevent the loss of 600 jobs, 25 or so workers are staging a sit-in at the Vestas wind turbine manufacturing plant on the Isle of Wight—off the south coast of the English mainland. Thanks to several good strategies on their part,  the most important of which has been complete openness and interaction with the media, the protesters have received a lot of favorable press coverage. For instance, the BBC ran a story about life “on the inside,” in which they asked protesters about how they keep their morale up, what they’re doing for food and where they sleep. Vestas on the other hand, has been remarkably silent—much to its own detriment—as the Financial Times of London noted.

Rather than coming out with a robust defence and a good finger-pointing at, say, market forces or government policy, the company is only issuing the barest of peeps to the media; the odd statement (sometimes emailed, from the look of it, although we were lucky enough to hear it in person) along the lines of ‘discussions are progressing’ is being given out.

Now we don’t like to gripe about companies’ PR policies, mostly because it’s usually boring to non-journalists. But some of their silence is baffling. By contrast, it is astoundingly easy to get in touch with the protesters.

In fact, as FT goes on to report, it was through the protesters that the media found out Vestas was supplying them with food. This would have been a key point for the company to brag about, since it was earlier reported that it constructed a fence to prevent people from tossing food to the protesters. But, as FT suggests, renewable energy companies don’t have the experience fossil fuel companies have when it comes to being seen as the bad guys.

More to that point, as The Guardian noted, Vestas is obfuscating the facts surrounding its reason for closing Britain’s only wind turbine manufacturing facility.

Vestas claims that the manufacturing operation is insufficiently profitable – even though its profits continue to grow – and that it exists in too complex a planning environment. Furthermore, it has been cutting back on its wind turbine activities in Britain for some time.

Here is another opportunity the protesters have seized upon. They’ve been criticizing climate change secretary Ed Miliband for making “statement after statement” about green energy, while standing by as the factory closes down. Essentially, the workers have come to realize that this protest isn’t just about saving jobs at a time of bad unemployment, it’s also about saving green jobs at a time when global emissions must be lowered.

According to a columnist for The Guardian, at least one environmental group has helped the workers make this vital connection and bolster their protest tactics.

In understanding why the occupation arose, the agitation of the Campaign against Climate Change seems to have played a role in bolstering the workers’ understanding of fighting not just to save their jobs but also to make a stand for the environment. But they also seem to have learned that previous protest outside the plant was not sufficient.That’s why the occupiers have set up their own website and organised a series of demonstrations. Protests are due to take place in London and the Isle of Wight in order to support the occupation.

This kind of issue-spanning solidarity needs to happen more frequently for protest movements to gain serious momentum. The anti-coal movement, for instance, should start working with coal miners to help improve their conditions. Anything that takes more power and profit away from the coal companies is a win for the environment. At the same time, anti-coal workers could also start lobbying government for replacement job training programs, much like the ones that were created for tobacco farmers in the south.

While it remains to be seen what will happen to the Vestas workers and their jobs, they’ve certainly managed to captivate the media and draw attention to positive ways in which a protest can be run.

• Hundreds of protesters, some wearing green sashes to indicate they’re on hunger strike, gathered across from UN Headquarters for the start of a three-day event in support of the Iranian opposition movement.

• About 150 people rallied in Newark, New Jersey yesterday near the spot where a 35-year-old mother of two was gunned down earlier this week to shout chants of “Stop the violence now.”

• Students from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University gathered on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing yesterday to protest the state’s move to cut financial aid programs.

• Prison farm instructors in Prince Albert, Canada staged an information picket yesterday to support farm education programs for inmates, which may soon be cut by the federal government.

• A nurse’s union in Sri Lanka staged a walkout to protest the transfer of 54 nurses specializing in cancer treatment to other hospitals, leaving inexperienced nurses to tend to the risky task of administering chemotherapy.

• Some 200 Honduran women protesters gathered in front of the US embassy in Tegucigalpa, demanding “less talking and more action at the international field against this coup.”

• More South African workers are joining the thousands already on strike for better wage increases.

• Teachers in Nepal have gone on strike to protest the government’s failure to enact previous negotiation agreements.

• Yemeni security forces opened fire on protesters chanting anti-government slogans yesterday, killing 4 and wounding scores of others.