• Downtown Athens was paralyzed once again on Friday when thousands of Greeks took to the streets to protest against the country’s newly announced package of austerity measures.

• In the UK, an estimated 270,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union will walk out today to begin a two-day strike over redundancy payments.

• Portugal’s public services–including schools, hospitals and customs–were disrupted Thursday by strike action called by unions to protest the government’s plan to freeze wages.

• In Pakistan, the workers of the National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses (NPIW) continued their protest and sit-in in front of Karachi Press Club on Friday, protesting against the Sindh government over delay in regularizing the services of employees.

• In Egypt, protesting workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company ended a 15-day sit-in last week after reaching a compromise with Manpower Ministry representative Wael Allam. They were offered a sum equivalent to two months’ salary and an early retirement package of LE40,000, which they accepted.

• Dutch gay rights groups have called for a halt to protests against a Catholic church southwest of Amsterdam after it said it would no longer seek to bar homosexuals from taking communion.

• Workers at a frozen pizza factory in Ireland have ended their hunger strike after making a deal with bosses over the sacking of three men.

• In the Philippines, Gabriela – the country’s foremost alliance of progressive women’s organizations -  has declared March 8, International Women’s Day, as a “day off” for Filipinas, to be spent out in the streets, marching, protesting and asserting their rights.

Cincinnati’s Fair Hiring Campaign rallied last Thursday, February 25, to ask Mayor Mark Mallory and his appointed Civil Service Commission to end their policy of denying city jobs to qualified applicants with felony convictions.

Over fifty Cincinnati residents, myself included, arrived at Cincinnati’s City Hall for the Commission’s 9 am meeting only to find that the Commission had abruptly canceled its section for public comment.  “Ain’t council chambers the people’s house?” asked one individual in the crowd.  Leaders of the Fair Hiring Campaign negotiated for two minutes of speaking time before the Commission.

Former offenders face employment barriers both de facto and de jure even for seemingly ancient convictions that have no relevance to the job. These restrictions hinder the ability of millions of Americans (one in 99 is currently incarcerated) to reintegrate successfully after completing their sentences.

For at least three years, the City has opposed proposed changes to its no-felon hiring policy.  Frustratingly, the Mayor denies that such a policy even exists.

Ironically, by condemning rehabilitated people to unemployment and under-employment, the no-felon hiring policy ends up increasing the burden on the City’s own overloaded criminal justice and public welfare systems.

Proposed changes would allow city government to consider an applicant’s evidence of rehabilitation. “We’re not asking for guaranteed jobs,” Stephen JohnsonGrove of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center told the Commission.  “We just want fair consideration for people with old and irrelevant criminal records.”

After speaking to the Commission, the group walked to the Mayor’s office to present over 1000 letters from Cincinnatians supporting a fair hiring policy.

The no-felon hiring policy is based on fear, not evidence.  Depending on a person’s age and offense, research finds that after a certain period of time s/he is no more likely to offend than same-aged members of the general population.  For 18-year-olds arrested for robbery in 1980, that point was 7.7 years. Yet people convicted of crimes less serious than robbery still face barriers decades later.

Employment barriers don’t make us any safer.  They serve, instead, to punish people years after they have paid their debt to society.  “You can get over an addiction,” one person told me, “but a conviction stays with you for life.”

• In Evansville, Indiana, a crowd estimated at 5,000 strong poured onto the shoulder and parking lot of the Evansville plant, protesting Whirlpool’s decision to shut down and ship jobs to Mexico.

• Carrefour SA’s 116 stores in Belgium were closed Saturday because of a strike over planned job cuts, said a company spokesman who put the resulting sales loss at the company-owned outlets at 14 million euros ($19 million).

• Scores of Jordanian politicians and trade union members staged a sit-in at the Trade Unions Complex in Amman on Saturday to denounce Israel’s addition of two West Bank holy sites to a list of Jewish heritage centers.

• Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul led over 1,000 Iraqi Catholics in a silent protest on February 28 to demand that the government act to put a stop to violence against Christians there.

• In Nepal, the 48-hour sit-in protest of the Civil Movement for Democracy and Peace (CMDP), which began from Thursday in front of the Constituent Assembly building, to urge political parties to draft the constitution within the given time frame, concluded on Saturday at 8 am.

• Several Cuban dissidents say they will refuse food in protest at the death earlier this week of a jailed government opponent. Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on Tuesday in a hospital in the capital Havana after a hunger strike of 85 days. His death triggered international protests and Cuban President Raul Castro issued an expression of regret.

• Three Chinese death-row inmates who say they were tortured into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit have staged a hunger strike to draw attention to their case.

• Thousands of adherents of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) marched in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa Feb. 25 to protest the slaying of civil resistance leaders under what they still consider to be the “de facto regime” of President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo despite the change in government last month. The rally concluded in front of the National Congress building, where the march was blocked by a military cordon.

• Hundreds of Dutch activists have walked out of a Mass in protest at a Roman Catholic policy of denying communion to practising homosexuals.

• On Thursday, protesting Guatemalan teachers in Melchor de Mencos blocked the Melchor Bridge with their bodies to stop vehicular passage through the border between Guatemala and Belize. According to union president Zetina, who spoke on behalf of the teachers, they are demanding a 16% salary increase from their Government, in addition to proper renovation of school buildings.

• Thirty-eight Jamaican women — all of them asylum seekers, some of whom have lived in the UK for as long as 10 years — are on hunger strike in holding facilities in the United Kingdom, in protest of their imminent deportation to Jamaica.

• Tens of thousands of protesters calling themselves the Purple People took to the streets of Rome on the weekend in a sign of mounting opposition to the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The group, Il Popolo Viola, wore purple sweaters and scarves, Berlusconi masks or striped prison dress to protest against what they say is the undermining of Italian democracy by Mr Berlusconi in his battle with the country’s legal system.

• More than 30,000 people took to the streets of Athens Wednesday after two of Greece’s largest trade unions organized a nationwide strike to protest austerity measures aimed at reducing the country’s public debt. But the largely peaceful rally of disgruntled workers was unfortunately disrupted by a group of violent youths who clashed with police.

• Hundreds of rallies took place across the nation on Wednesday—the eve of President Obama’s White House Health Care Summit—and over a million signed a petition sent to Congress urging lawmakers to “finish the job and pass real health care reform.”

• Environmentalists in Australia marched on New South Wales Parliament yesterday to protest plans for new coal power stations at Bayswater and Lithgow.

• 5,000 indigenous Dongria Kondhs of India trekked to the abode of their presiding deity Niyam Raja on Sunday and designated it as inviolate to protest a controversial alumina refinery and bauxite mine project.

• More than 320 students, faculty and community members gathered Wednesday afternoon to demonstrate for sub-contract workers’ rights at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

• Hundreds of students from several Jordan, Utah district schools walked out of their classes Thursday morning to protest announced budget cuts that could slash teacher ranks, increase class sizes and impact extracurricular activities.

• Nine days after an off-campus student party mocked Black History Month, UC San Diego went through a day of protests, on Wednesday, drawing attention to the small number of African American students enrolled at the beachside campus.

• Classes at a secondary school in Midland, Ontario were disrupted Wednesday morning when nearly 200 students walked out to protest rumoured cuts in programming.

Last week, the Boston Globe had an interesting piece about how the research of Boston College sociology professor Lisa Dodson led to her new book, “The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy.” As she was interviewing managers at stores that employed low-wage workers, she began hearing their discomfort with making enough to live well, while their workers were seriously struggling to make ends meet.

In response to this unjust situation, Dodson found that many managers participated in acts of what she calls “economic disobedience,” such as slipping “their workers extra money, food, or time needed to care for sick children,” in an effort to undermine the system. One story she tells is of Andrew, a manager at a large Midwest food business, who:

…said he put extra money in the paychecks of those earning a “poverty wage,” punched out their time cards at the usual quitting time when they had to leave early for a doctor’s appointment, and gave them food.

Andrew had decided that by supervising workers who were treated unfairly – paid too little and subjected to inflexible schedules that prevented them from taking care of their families – he was playing a direct role in the unfair system, and so he was morally obligated to act.

Not surprisingly, her book has sparked controversy for portraying such acts in a positive light. Some argue that she is essentially glorifying stealing from companies, rather than working through legal channels to try to rectify the situation.

I personally would tend to agree with Dodson, that these acts are moral. Corporations are not designed to care for the well-being of their workers. Their primary focus by law is on the bottom line and the interests of their shareholders, which are generally at odds with what would be best for the workers. (If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend watching The Corporation. It’s a documentary that came out a few years back that explores these issues and many more.)

I’d be interested to hear what you think. Are these acts of “economic disobedience” something to be lauded or is this theft by another name?

• The pilots’ union of Lufthansa began a 4-day strike today after a last-ditch effort at negotiations over pay and job security failed.

• In Thailand, truck operators will stage a stoppage on roads today in protest at alleged extortion by highway police, saying incidents have doubled since last year.

• Thousands of protesters in Ivory Coast call for the resignation of President Laurent Gbagbo as clashes with security forces leave an undisclosed number of people dead and wounded.

• All 600 detainees at a prison in Iraq’s southern city of Basra have gone on hunger strike to protest conditions that are “not fit for animals,” a local politician said on Friday.

• Strikes at French refineries looked likely to spread as Exxonmobil employees Friday were called to join a protest at oil giant Total that has shut down seven plants and raised fears of supply cuts.

• Greece faces a growing fuel shortage as a customs workers’ strike halts the flow of petrol into the country. Customs workers have extended their strike against wage freezes and bonus cuts until this Wednesday, when unions across Greece will hold a general strike that is set to bring the country to a standstill.

• Dozens of Egyptian women and human rights activists staged a protest last Thursday in Cairo against a recent decision that bars women from holding judicial positions.

• Last Wednesday, Kenyans marched to vent their anger at a coalition government slowly falling apart over graft allegations and its inability to further key reforms pledged two years ago.

• Last week, A group of lawyers from the Law and Democracy Platform, an Turkish NGO working to strengthen the rule of law while respecting democratic values, protested against the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) decision to strip prosecutors conducting a probe into jailed Erzincan Chief Prosecutor İlhan Cihaner of their special authorities.

A Minnie Mouse lookalike outside Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel striking with union local 681.

Eight Disneyland Hotel workers of UNITE HERE Local Union 11 in Anaheim, California, engaged in a week-long hunger strike to highlight their two-year dispute on health care and other labor issues with the Walt Disney Company.  The eight workers ended their hunger strike on Tuesday, as five more began fasting.

The workers want to keep the health plan that their union provides (paid for in lieu of pay raises), while Disney proposes deducting health care costs from workers’ wages. Disney maintains that their plan would cost $250 a month per family, while the union estimates $500.  Workers typically earn $11-13 an hour.

The Disney dispute mirrors an exacerbating national trend: Employment no longer guarantees satisfactory health care coverage.  Between 2001 and 2007, insurance premiums rose 78% while wages rose 19%. As health care costs rise, employers drop benefits, contributing to the number of uninsured Americans.

One in six full-time workers, or 21 million people, were uninsured for all 12 months of 2008.  Astoundingly, 45% of the nation’s 46 million uninsured actually worked full-time. And the percentage of Americans who receive health insurance through their employer has decreased from 64% in 2000 to 59% in 2008.

The Disney workers seem determined not to become another statistic.

• Three activists began an occupation of Marfork Coal Company’s main offices in West Virginia yesterday. Marfork is a subsidiary of the coal extracting giant Massey Energy. The protesters plan to present a citizen’s arrest warrant and list of violations on the Marfork processing plant.

• About 400 demonstrators gathered in Aldermaston England on Monday to block the entrances of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, where warheads for Trident submarines are made. Twenty-six were arrested, including Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire.

• About 1,200 Iranians signed a statement against a bill that would further curb women’s rights.

• Greek customs workers announced 48-hour rolling strikes yesterday—the day that was supposed to be the last of a three-day strike to protest government austerity measures designed to pull Greece out of a debt crisis.

• Belgian train drivers went on strike Tuesday to protest safety conditions after the collision of two commuter trains left at least 18 people dead.

• About 300 protesters, mostly doctors dressed in white coats, chanted “the health-care system is in danger” and waved soccer-style red cards in the direction of the building where Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has his office.

• Some 600 workers shut down a pulp and paper mill in southern Finland on Wednesday to protest UPM-Kymmene Corp.’s plans to lay off 200 workers.

• Thousands of civil servants have marched through Athens, the Greek capital, as they went on a 24-hour strike in protest against the government’s plans to freeze wages, gather more taxes and reform pensions. The action left flights grounded and many schools and government offices closed, while public hospitals were expected to only take emergency cases. A two-million-strong federation of unions will also start a general strike Feb. 24.

• Ikea offered Wednesday to meet with labor union leaders after strikes shut down several stores in France — but only if six workers end a sit-in at its Paris office first. Workers walked off the job starting Saturday in protest over pay.

• Disneyland hotel workers  began a water-only fast Tuesday to protest what they describe as life-threatening safety issues on the job.  To show support for workers fasting outside the Grand Californian, over 300 people marched in front of Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim yesterday.

• In Iran, numerous opposition figures reported police harassment on Thursday, including the firing of tear gas and paint balls at protests in the capital Tehran.

• Also in Tehran, workers of Tohid Tunnel gathered in front of the entrance of the tunnel they work for in protest of unpaid salaries. The gathering resulted in the closure of the connections between north and south Chamran Freeway from Milad tower to the entrance of Tohid tunnel.

• Syracuse Peace Council members protested outside the Syracuse Air National Guard base on Tuesday against unmanned drones that are now being operated from the site.

• In Texas, dozens of prisoners have gone on a hunger strike at a Los Fresnos immigration jail in protest of inhumane conditions. It’s at least the third hunger strike at the Port Isabel Detention Center in less than a year.

• Tomorrow, citizens of Florida and Destin will have the opportunity to show their opposition to oil drilling off Florida’s coastline. Hands Across the Sand encourages Florida residents concerned with pending drilling legislation to gather on beaches at noon and hold hands forming lines in the sand against oil drilling in coastal waters.

• Thousands of Australians will let their tastebuds do the talking when they sit down later this month for “Vindaloo Against Violence”, a mass dining event to protest attacks against Indians.

• Hundreds of students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas walked out of class yesterday and gathered for a rally outside a building where lawmakers were holding a finance committee meeting. The lawmakers agreed to hear their concerns over the proposed budget cuts.

• At least 50 women at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England entered the fourth day of a hunger strike yesterday to protest against their detention and conditions, with ­several reportedly fainting in corridors and almost 20 locked outdoors wearing few clothes.

• 200 people marched toward the US embassy in Port-au-Prince yesterday, crying out for food and aid, while about 50 more gathered outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed. They chanted, “Down with Perval” as they protested conditions and Preval’s lack of leadership.

• Thanks to a sustained campaign by UK-based tribal rights group Survival International, the Church of England has dropped its 3.8 million pound stake in the controversial mining company, Vedanta Resources, citing concern over the company’s human rights record.

• Teachers, parents and school board members rallied outside Detroit Public Schools’ administrative offices to protest a new standardized test being administered this week, which they fear will be used as a political tool to lobby the state legislature for academic control over DPS.

• Around 400 workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company in Cairo staged an open-ended sit-in Monday to demand the payment of withheld salaries.

• Police in Venezuela used tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons to scatter hundreds of students protesting against the government Thursday, while President Hugo Chavez’s supporters celebrated the 18th anniversary of his failed coup as an army officer.

• Hundreds of London Underground maintenance workers went on the first of a series of 24-hour strikes Friday morning in protest over new roster arrangements. They will continue to cause disruptions at the same time every Sunday from February 14th until the dispute is resolved.

• Dozens of Yemeni journalists, civil-society activists and members of parliament protested on Friday in front of the attorney general’s office in Sana’a against increasing harassment of journalists.

• The entrance to Kaiser Permanente’s Moanalua clinic in Hawaii was briefly shut-down on Thursday when protesters from Local 5 staged a sit-in. Kaiser employees and Local 5 members came to rally for a new contract that they say won’t out-source union work.

• In Calcutta, senior citizens staged a hunger strike on Saturday to protest against the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities.

• In Pakistan, political and social organizations continued a country-wide strike and protest this weekend against the deadly blasts in Karachi.

• Cuban police harassed and briefly jailed some 35 political dissidents last week in the eastern city of Camaguey, a Cuban human rights group said Friday.

• On Saturday, hundreds of Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) staff and their families staged a protest outside the company’s refinery in Ma’ameer over pay and working conditions.

• In Oslo, a thousand taxi drivers of Muslim background went on strike late Friday, early Saturday moring in protest of the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.

• More than 200 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in Saudi Arabia have stopped working since Saturday in protest of alleged unfair labor practices of their employer.

• More than 250 Washington State University Vancouver students staged a “mass walkout” to protest budget cuts to academic programs, the elimination of crucial financial aid, and continued tuition hikes.

• Canadian anti-Olympic protesters are promising a series of protests starting this weekend, culminating in a march on the opening ceremonies Feb. 12.

• Anti-US demonstrations in several Iraqi cities coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit this week.

• Chinese artists have been staging flash mobs to protest the bulldozing of their studios.

• Chinese activist Feng Zhenghu ended his 90-day sit-in at Japan’s Narita International Airport on Tuesday when Chinese officials finally agreed to let him return.

• Customs officials and tax inspectors in Greece are holding a two-day strike to protest government austerity measures, including wage cuts.

• Workers at Fiat plants across Italy held a four-hour strike on Wednesday to protest plans to shut a factory in Sicily.

• Life remained crippled for the fourth day on Thursday in the Kashmir valley due to a general strike protesting the death of a 13-year-old boy by police on Sunday evening in down town city.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley doesn’t feel that he needs to do a whole lot these days. Over the past week, as indignation and frustration has swelled with city truck drivers, Daley has refused to so much as meet with Teamster officials. Meanwhile, the union is threatening to strike, which would cause a massive stoppage in city services; the Daley administration has claimed that a strike would be illegal and won’t give an inch.

According to the Teamster contract, the city is obligated to employ a workforce and pay them when there isn’t any work. The trouble started at Chicago airports, where plow drivers are accustomed to getting paid even when there isn’t any snow, and thus no work. This cost-cutting measure would reportedly save the city $1 million annually.

The issue here isn’t about money. When looking at the overall financial picture of Chicago, $1 million is loose change. It’s the $20 debt your friend asks you to repay while your house is being foreclosed. The city’s finances are grim, and $1 million isn’t going to help it.

In 2009, Chicago reported a deficit of over $500 million. Not only that, but the payments for Daley’s $86 million loan to purchase the decrepit Michael Reese hospital (slated to be converted into an Olympic Village—so much for that) are about to kick in, and the billion that was brought in through the absurd parking-meter deal to cover the city’s massive shortfalls is already dried up.

But it’s easy for Daley to point fingers at these workers and get the public behind him. They are, after all, getting paid good money to not work, while so many are laid-off.  Daley can work his spin and divert the attention from what a strike would truly represent: an organized challenge to Daley’s limitless power.

Last week, Daley said that “these are very difficult times and we all have to share in that pain.” True, yet it’s hard to recognize what Daley is doing to alleviate this pain.

Read the rest of this article »

• On Saturday, some 6,000 people gathered at a rally in Tokyo calling for the withdrawal of U.S. Marine base stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

• Russian police broke up anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Sunday, and detained more than 100 demonstrators, including several opposition leaders.

• More than 150 inmates at a prison in Spuz, outside Podgorica, Montenegro launched a hunger strike last Wednesday, claiming guards are abusing them. This is the second such protest in ten days.

• In India, 10,000 teachers from 35 central universities began a two-day strike last Thursday, demanding changes in the regulation on service conditions which seeks to link their promotion to output.

• Dozens of students at Little Miami High School in Cincinnati walked out of class Monday morning on the eve of a critical levy vote. The walkout was followed by a sit-in at the school.

• A large number of staff at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport, including security personnel, walked off the job yesterday and attended union meetings in protest against plans to outsource two employee canteens. Other employees who have downed tools include baggage handlers, the fire department, cleaning crews, technicians and drivers.

• Immigrants held in a South Texas detention center have begun an indefinite hunger strike. Its the second mass hunger strike in a year. Some of the detainees say they’ll refuse to eat until they are released.

• The Sheikh Yassin coalition organized a protest outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris on Saturday, demanding that Egypt stop building an underground steel barrier on the border with the Gaza Strip.

• Palestinians took part in a protest in Gaza City yesterday, calling for the release of their loved ones imprisoned in Israeli jails.

• Hundreds of Notre Dame University students and faculty members gathered on campus yesterday to demand more equality for LGBT students. The protest was in response to an anti-gay comic strip which appeared in the student paper a few weeks ago.

• Climate activists in South Lanarkshire closed down one of Scotland’s main coal terminals yesterday when one of the protesters chained himself to a digging machine. This led to 11 coal trucks queuing at the terminal’s gate and prevented a coal train being loaded.

• Dozens of people gathered in front of Camp Phoenix, an ISAF military base in the eastern part of Kabul, to protest the death of a civilian by NATO forces. They blocked the road that links the Afghan capital to eastern provinces.

• Roughly 100 members from the UAW and Teamsters unions and their supporters gathered outside the Japanese Embassy in Washington yesterday to protest Toyota’s decision to close a California plants and hire nonunion carhaulers.

• Hundreds of students and alumni packed the steps of the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson yesterday to show their support for higher education funding and their opposition to proposals that call for merging some Mississippi universities.

• About 1,400 construction workers defied a court order to end their strike at the $13 billion liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia. The strike started Jan. 22 to protest Woodside Petroleum Ltd.’s plans to make the workers change accommodation every month instead of providing permanent housing.

• Five concerned parents barricaded themselves inside a primary school in Glasgow this week to protest proposals to shut down the school. It was the latest in a series of school occupations which have taken place over the past year.

• Thirteen people were arrested Tuesday at a protest outside the White House against US militarism abroad. The activists lay down on the sidewalk after reading the names of Americans, Iraqis and Afghans killed in US wars.