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Asia
India: Patna city sanitation workers’ strike enters third week
The strike action of 8,000 sanitation contract workers at the Patna Municipal Corporation, in Bihar State is in its third full week. Low-paid workers in Bihar stopped working on September 21, demanding a number of things, such as a wage increase and securing permanent employment. They earn between US$96 and Rs. 10,000 per month. The monthly wage they want is between 18,000 and 20,000 rupees.
The strikers, many of whom have worked for wages below the poverty line for over 10 years now in hopes of finding a permanent position, are frustrated. Workers are a part of Swach Bharath Scheme – a government sanitation program. Modi is taking action to discipline the workers.
Odisha Rural Health Care Workers Strike for Pay Rise and Pensions
The state of Odisha is currently experiencing an indefinite strike by thousands of rural health workers (anganwadi). They are protesting low wages and insufficient retirement pensions. All Odisha Anganwadi Ladies Workers Association wants their monthly wage, currently 7,500 rupees (US90), increased to 18,000 rupees and Anganwadi Assistants’ salary from 3,700 to 9,000 rupees.
Also, they want the retirement age to be raised to 65 and for retirement funds to reach 500,000 rupees.
An Anganwadi worker who spoke for the association said, even though they have worked up to forty years in Anganwadi work, their retirement is miserable. The salary of anganwadi workers is lower than that of daily laborers, despite the fact they help the government with all sorts of activities in the field and the basic duties of the program.
Haryana government deregisters union at Bellsonica’s Manesar auto-parts factory
The Trade Union Registrar of Haryana, following a request from company management, has cancelled the registration of the Bellsonica workers’ union at the auto-parts factory in Manesar for allegedly extending union rights to outsourced contract workers.
When making this decision, the government of New York referred to an article in the Trade Union Act from 1926. This section states that only those employees who are directly employed by a company may join the union. This plant employs 700 permanent workers and 1,600 contractors.
Bellsonica employees and ex-employees protested against the ruling on Saturday, September 27, in Gurgaon. Maruti Suzuki employees joined in. This matter is currently before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The hunger strike of General Motors India workers who were retrenched in Pune
About 1,000 retrenched workers from General Motors India’s shuttered plant at Telegaon near Pune in Maharashtra state, began an indefinite hunger protest on Monday. The workers are requesting reinstatement in the plant, which was sold to Hyundai Motor India.
General Motors Employees Union GMEU said they had asked the Maharashtra government to take action. Workers claimed that, despite assurances from the state’s industries minister, nothing had been done.
Teachers protesting Tamil Nadu arrests in Chennai
Chennai police arrested striking members of three teachers’ unions on early Thursday morning. Teachers were holding a demonstration outside of Directorate of Public Instructions where many government agencies are located. The arrest came hours after the education minister promised to look into the teachers’ demands.
Since over a fortnight, hundreds of teachers protested and went on a hunger-strike at this site. They demand equal pay for the same jobs, permanent employment and the withdrawal of government laws that are repressive.
Bangladeshi garment workers demand higher pay
On Sunday, hundreds of garment workers demonstrated outside the office of Dhaka’s minimum wage board to protest for a pay increase. The Garment Workers Alliance representing 11 trade unions in the garment sector want the minimum monthly wage raised to between 23,000 and 25,000 taka ($US209–$227) from the current $73. The Garment Workers Alliance, which represents 11 trade unions in the garment sector, wants to raise the minimum monthly wage from $73 up to between 23,000 and 25,000 taka ($US209-$227).
Owners of clothing factories drag out the negotiations, and do not make a salary increase offer. A factory owners’ representative said the new wage hike would not come into effect until January 2024.
As of the end 2018, the minimum wage set for garment workers was 8,000 Taka ($72.55). The government and factory owners are determined to keep Bangladeshi garment workers’ minimum wages below the poverty wages of garment workers in competing countries.
Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies reports that the Bangladesh minimum wage is $307 in Turkey. It’s $262 in China. $250 in Malaysia. $244 in Philippines. $194 in Cambodia. $168 in Vietnam. $128 in India.
Australia
QantasLink Western Australia pilots strike for better pay
On Wednesday, over 200 Network Aviation Pilots who are employed by QantasLink, an Australian subsidiary of the Qantas Group, came to a halt for 24 hours. Qantas has been forced to cancel the half of regional flights within Western Australia, which affects about 3,500 fly-in/flyout workers and mining employees.
The Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP), covering 211 pilots employed by Network Aviation and 266 at Qantaslink, is in dispute with the two Qantas subsidiaries over Qantas’ proposed enterprise agreement. AFAP’s members voted to protect industrial action on September 25, including bans of overtime, wearing prescribed uniforms and stoppages for 24 hours.
An AFAP spokesman stated that Network Aviation Pilots earn up to 50 per cent less than their counterparts on comparable airlines. In some instances, they are even paid lower than the Air Pilots award. AFAP demands pay parity between mainline Qantas pilots and AFAP members. Qantas claimed it has offered an immediate 25 percent pay increase and that AFAP’s demands were unreasonable.
The Network Aviation Pilots rejected last week a pay proposal that included an increase of 13-20% in pay from October, a 3 percent annual pay raise and increased rostered holidays to 9 per roster. If they agreed to the proposal, Qantas offered them bonuses worth $7,000 each. Pilots report that Qantas had sent “threatening letters” indicating they would lose established conditions if they did not accept the offer.
The negotiations to reach a new contract have been stuck since March. Both parties agreed to continue negotiations the following week.
Cadbury workers on strike in Tasmania
Close to 400 Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) members from Cadbury’s Claremont factory in Tasmania have begun a campaign of ongoing industrial action, including four one hour-long stoppages each fortnight as they push for an improved pay offer in the company’s proposed enterprise agreement.
The workers voted near unanimously in June to take strike action after rejecting Cadbury’s below inflation wage increase offer of 13 percent over three years. Tasmania CPI (consumer price index) was at 5.5 percent in June. This means that a salary increase of less than 16.5% would actually be a cut. The union indicated it was willing to accept an annual salary increase of just 5 percent.
Workers’ last wage increase was only 2.75 percent, in March 2022. This was at a period when the inflation rate was about 7 percent. Also, casual and part-time employees are demanding better sick leave benefits and increased job security.
Cadbury’s parent company, Mondelez International, a transnational food and beverage company, reported a turnover of $US26 billion last financial year with a net profit of $2.7 billion.
Coles and Woolworths employees hold a national strike
The first national strike will see 700 Coles and Woolworths employees walk off their job at 10 am on Saturday, October 7. The workers are members of the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) which has a membership of 413 at Coles’ stores and 276 at Woolworths stores.
According to a RAFFWU spokesperson, members are fighting for living wage, safe workplaces, and stable jobs. The casual worker is only paid a few cents above the minimum wage.
The union issued a total of 13 restrictions on Friday. This included refusals to clean toilets, crush cardboard boxes or pack orders online. It also prohibited the removal of loose inventory from floors and registers. Coles warned RAFFWU that they would not get paid if the members refused to do duties prohibited by their union, no matter what other jobs they did. According to the union, management had warned employees that they could be terminated if they participated in the 2-hour strike.
For decades, management and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, or SDA, have worked together to impose low wages and unfavourable conditions. The association hasn’t called on its members to take part in the protest.
Coles declared a $1.1 billion net profit for financial year 2022–23, while Woolworths recorded a net profit of $1.5 billion.
Workers at Padstow in New South Wales, who collect waste for Cleanaway Waste Collection Company, hold a second strike
Transport Workers Union (TWU) members from the Cleanaway Liquid Waste Services depot at Padstow, an inner-west Sydney suburb, walked off the job for 24 hours on September 29 in opposition to the company’s proposed enterprise agreement. Cleanaway had allegedly tried to cut wages and working conditions as part of its enterprise agreement, according to the 13 workers who walked out on September 1. These strikes affected major retailers such as Coles, McDonald’s, Ampol, and KFC.
TWU negotiates new agreements with Cleanaway Depots, which have contracts in place with 130 councils local and 150 000 business clients across Australia. The company operates 5,000 trucks for waste collection. All Cleanaway Depots are covered under separate agreements.
The Padstow workers action followed strikes by hundreds of Cleanaway waste collection workers in most state capital cities this year in opposition to the company’s proposed cost-cutting agreements. TWU has isolated each dispute and prolonged them by keeping strike durations between 24 to 48 hours.
CSL Pharmaceutical Factory Workers in Victoria Strike for Pay Rise
Over 60 maintenance workers from the CSL Behring pharmaceutical factory at Broadmeadows, a northern Melbourne suburb, walked off the job for six hours on Wednesday in a dispute over CSL’s proposed enterprise agreement. The workers are members of the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union who said after 13 rounds of negotiations CSL had failed to make “a fair and reasonable offer.”
Workers from both unions voted unanimously on 18 September to approve industrial action. The ballot included the approval of an unlimited amount of work stoppages and bans on overtime, as well as 12 lesser-level bans. The logs of both unions have not been made public, nor has either indicated that further industrial actions are planned.
Southeast Queensland Bus drivers strike again for higher pay
As part of a dispute over pay, more than 500 Transport Workers Union (TWU), members who work at three different bus operators across southeast Queensland, halted their operations for 24 consecutive hours on Tuesday. Bus drivers and cleaners of Kinetic subsidiaries Surfside and Sunbus, both on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast, along with Clarks Logan City Bus Service and independent operators, all want higher wages, better safety standards, more consultation and new enterprise contracts.
It followed on from a 24-hour-long strike that took place in August as well as three-day long farefree days held in May, July and August. TWU has three different agreements under negotiation. Workers are demanding a pay increase of 7 percent this year and the recruitment of more drivers.
In February, the TWU settled a wage agreement with Kinetic that ended half-days and full-days of strikes. Workers had not been consulted and opposed the deal which provided paltry pay increases that took the drivers’ base rate to just $30 an hour, and cleaners/refuellers to just above $23 an hour.
University of Melbourne Teachers Strike for a Second Time to Improve Pay and Conditions
A group of close to 1,400 National Tertiary Education Unions (NTEU) employees at University of Melbourne (UoM), in a long-standing dispute over the university’s proposed enterprise agreements, walked off for a one-week strike Monday. This action was taken after a 24-hour walkout on August 28. Some faculties extended the strike to a full week.
After over a year of unsuccessful negotiations, the strike was called after NTEU members failed to reach an agreement on job security, work load, flexible arrangements for working, university restructuring, and demands of wage increases. The NTEU demands a 15 per cent pay rise spread over three year or an increase equal to 1.5 percentage points plus the Consumer Price index. In 2021, the last time members received a pay increase was by 2.2 percent.
In June, UoM offered a 6 percent pay rise but wanted to take the money out of employees’ existing salary packages by tapping their superannuation. This industrial action follows a series of court actions over the underpayment of employees, which has resulted in back-payments exceeding $45,000,000 and expected to increase.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s vocational educators strike once again
National Tertiary Educators Union (NTEU) members walked off the job at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) campuses for two days on Thursday in their dispute over the university’s proposed enterprise agreement. This action was taken after a day-long strike and stop-work meetings on September 7, and a number of work bans.
Educators rejected RMIT’s proposed agreement, which included sub-inflation 3.5 percent annual wage rises, extension of the agreement to four years and 13 percent superannuation. RMIT wants to create a new category of sessional employees, increase teaching hours and change the classification testing. Despite the fact that the CPI annualised for Melbourne is 5.6 per cent, the NTEU only wants a pay rise of 5 per cent.
NTEU member’s top priority is securing employment. Around 50 percent are precarious and casual. Some are required to work two jobs or more to make ends meet. Recent research by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education shows that over the past twenty years, the unions have endorsed agreements with universities that failed to improve job security or the working conditions of casual educational workers.
Strike by workers at the Stramit Steel Fabrication Factory in New South Wales
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, (AMWU), has eight workers from Stramit, the steel fabricator in Newcastle north of Sydney. They walked off their jobs for the rest the shift on Thursday after a mid-day meeting.
Workers are in dispute over Stramit’s proposed below inflation enterprise agreement annual pay increase of just 3 percent. Newcastle’s annualised CPI is 6.6%. It comes after Stramit and the union convinced workers, during the COVID-19 epidemic to accept a wage rise of 0.5%, 1.5% and 2.5%. They said they must have pay increases that keep pace with inflation.