Experiments with truth: 10/30/09
Several hundred Transit Workers Union members and their supporters in New York marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall Wednesday to protest the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s refusal to implement a new contract established by arbitrators earlier this year.
- A general strike paralyzed Royal Mail on Thursday, with unions launching a phased walkout involving up to 120,000 workers in a protest against job cuts. The Communication Workers Union said the walk off would last until Saturday.
- At least 50 Iron Cast Pipe Manufacturing workers in Iran were arrested and a number were injured by security guards after refusing to end their four-day long protest against a ten-month delay in wage payments.
- A Guinean activist says the military has arrested 10 demonstrators who were on a hunger strike to protest last month’s massacre.
- In the UK, Iraqi refugees locked up in Brook House and Colnbrook detention centres have been on hunger strike since October 19, to protest against their inhumane treatment and demand their immediate release.
- Human rights activists in Indonesia protested on Thursday over a district-wide ban on women wearing tight pants scheduled to take effect in West Aceh in January, saying it is a violation of women’s rights.
- In India, members of various trade unions in the state of Manipur, employees and workers staged a sit-in-protest on Wednesday against the price hike of commodities, downsizing of employees and irregular release of salaries to employees and workers.
