Police officers ‘buried’ the Ministry of Interior

Sofia. - Hundreds of police officers and their relatives have gathered in a park close to the embassy of the Czech Republic in Sofia.
Some of them were waving Bulgarian flags. There were many women and children.
A scene has been fixed in the park to host a concern.
Police officers staged a protest on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. outside the embassy of the Czech Republic.
Ivan Pavlov, police officer with District Police Directorate – Lovech and member of the new police trade union, said that not a single demand announced a month ago at a meeting with Interior Ministry leadership had been fulfilled and that’s why police officers would protest outside the embassy of the Czech Republic, holder of the EU Presidency.
The police officers insist on higher payment, better equipment and social status.
After the concert a declaration should be submitted in the embassy of the Czech Republic, holder of the EU rotating Presidency. The police officers want the document to reach the Union leaders, said Ivan Savov.
Later a rally was held along major streets in downtown Sofia.
Police officers will not give their demands up; they will stand up for them till the end, chairman of the new police trade union Ivan Pavlov told journalists, cited by Focus News Agency.
“We expect that finally someone will fulfill our six demands. We submitted them in the Ministry of Interior. We will insist on their fulfillment,” he added.
Asked whether political forces were behind Sunday’s protest of police officers, he asked rhetorically: “Do you see representatives of political parties here? I do not.”
Some 5,000 police officers have gathered in a park close to the embassy of the Czech Republic in Sofia.
On behalf of the police officers Dimitar Manolov, vice president of Confederation of Labor Podkrepa, submitted their declaration in the Czech embassy. The embassy official said he would hand the document to its addressees. The consul of the Czech Republic said ambassador Martin Klepetko was not able to meet with the police officers due to appointments. The declaration expresses discontent about the talks between Interior Ministry and contact group, which proved futile. The major demands of the police officers are: amendments to Interior Ministry Act concerning the trade union activity, amendments to the Penal Code that provide for tougher punishments for people who attack police officers, a 50% pay rise backdated to January 1st 2009, better equipment and payment for overtime and night work.
Police officers had already staged a series of similar sit-ins outside the interior ministry building here in recent months, demanding a salary increase, better working conditions and legislative reforms.
The interior ministry offered them a 5-percent rise in pay this past week, with minister Mihail Mikov saying the officers' demands for a 50-percent rise sounded "insolent" at a time of global crisis.
Mikov also told the national radio on Sunday that higher pay would come only with better results on the ground and there would also be personnel cuts.
Public discontent has mounted over the past months in Bulgaria, fed by fears of rising unemployment and deepening poverty amidst the global financial and economic crisis.


http://www.focus-fen.net/

WASA Slams Trade Unionist Robert Giuseppi For Intervening In Workers Affairs.

Third vice president of the National Trade Union Centre Robert Giuseppe has come under heavy fire from the (WASA) water and sewerage authority.

A statement from WASA, says the board strongly condemns the action of Mr. Giuseppe for organizing what it calls an unauthorized meeting at the utility’s head office on Wednesday.

The board also slams the employees who participated in the exercise describing them as misguided.

It accuses the employees of violating the terms of the industrial relations act through their actions, and vows to treat with them very firmly.

The board also accuses Mr. Giuseppe of invading the utility’s premises, and describes his behavior and conduct as most disturbing for an executive member of NATUC.

The board says it is not in a legal or other position to treat with Mr. Giuseppe on any matter whatsoever including the transition of waste water services as he has neither locus standing nor is recognized in law to represent employees of WASA.

http://www.i955fm.com/Default.aspx

Swedish trade union delegation barred from Gaza

Gaza – Ma’an – Israel prevented a Swedish trade union delegation from entering the Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening.

Tareq Al-Hindi, the secretary of the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, said that the delegation organized the visit in advance and received permits from Israel that would allow them to enter Gaza. When the delegation reached the Erez crossing, they were told that they would not be allowed into the Strip.

Al-Hindi said they had planned to meet with the Swedish union activists to discuss cooperation between unions in Palestine and Sweden, labor law, safety, and women’s involvement in the union movement.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php

Zimbabwe's Main Trade Union Sets Out Hard-Currency Pay Demand

An official of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the country's largest organized labor federation, said its members should be paid a minimum $US454 a month.

ZCTU Deputy Secretary General Japhet Moyo told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that this amount is what a family of six needs to survive.

But he said there has been resistance from employers who say private-sector workers should get the same US$100 allowance the government is giving public employees such as teachers, hospital workers, police officers and government clerical workers.

http://www.voanews.com/

VenEconomy: Unions Create a Détente Zone in Venezuela

The Chávez administration, with its totalitarian appetites run riot since February 15, has wanted to lay everything waste, from constitutional rights to citizen freedoms. Among the rights and freedoms that the President has sought to abolish are having a decent job that does not depend on party membership or supporting a given ideology and the right to independent trade union representation that fights for workers’ rights.

This Thursday, for the first time in more than seven years, leaders of trade union groups sympathetic to both the government and the opposition joined forces in what could be interpreted as a détente in the conflictive labor situation that is brewing in the country, and the Labor Solidarity Movement or MSL was formed. This movement seeks to create a united front to defend the rights of workers in both the public and private sectors. And while it does not include the majority of the country’s trade unions, for the moment, it is a starting point for achieving a united front while allowing for diversity.

Given the climate of labor conflict that is brewing, it is most timely that trade union leaders of all political stripes are sitting down at the same table to discuss which is the best path to take to achieve a true defense of the working class, setting aside political interests, desires to hold on to office or indulgence towards individualistic hegemonic projects.

According to some members of the MSL, this movement has come about as a result of pressure from the grassroots trade unions, which are seeing how the benefits they have won for their members are being eroded.

According to comments made by many of its most conspicuous spokesmen, as far as the Chávez administration is concerned, the importance of the trade union struggle is not simply socioeconomic benefits or labor rights or even people’s legitimate aspirations to a better standard of living. What is essential for Chávez and his cohorts is the ideologizing and indoctrination of the worker (read deadening of awareness) so that he blindly follows the orders of the “commander” and supports his project; in other words, a worker and a trade unionism as styled in Fidel’s Cuba.

However, there are incipient signs that Chávez has taken the wrong path this time. His eagerness to control did not take account of Venezuelans’ idiosyncrasies. The majority of the opinion polls agree that the aspirations of the Venezuelan worker is to have an equal opportunity to get a job, to have a decent job with fair pay, and that this job will allow him to improve his social status and the standard of living of his family. The majority are against donning a uniform, joining a party or voting for candidates imposed by the powers that be as a prerequisite to getting a job.

There is still much to be done and the acid test will be in the discussions over the innumerable labor contracts to come.

There are also many barriers to overcome, the most important being the renewal of an obsolete, tired leadership that is clinging on to posts in the highest echelons of the trade union movement and surviving the attacks that the government will eventually make on any trade union leaders who act independently, trying to criminalize them and put them out of commission.

VenEconomy has been a leading provider of consultancy on financial, political and economic data in Venezuela since 1982.
http://www.laht.com/index.asp

Union movement urges intervention over escalating repression in Iran

The global trade union movement is pressing the International Labour Organization (ILO) for action in response to a growing tide of oppression against trade unionists in Iran.

Representatives of the ITF, Education International, the International Union of Food Workers and the International Trade Union Confederation made the appeal in a letter to the ILO’s director-general, Juan Somavia, on 9 March. In it they expressed concern over “an escalating pattern of arrests and intimidation of trade unionists in Iran”. They had “reason to fear for the physical and the psychological wellbeing and even the lives of the latest victims of state repression.” That was why they believed the ILO’s intervention was necessary.

The group referred to the latest wave of repression against the Haft Tapeh union, which represents some 5000 sugar cane plantation workers. Five of the union’s elected members had been charged with acting against national security following a strike over unpaid wages and were awaiting a verdict. Three others including the union’s president, Ali Nejati, had also been arrested. All except Nejati had been released.

The unionists also highlighted how teacher, Farzad Kamangar, currently in Evin Prison had received the death penalty and expressed alarm over reports that two executive board members of the Tehran bus workers’ union, the Vahed Syndicate, had last month been summoned by the secret police. They reminded Somavia that the union’s president, Mansour Osanloo and vice-president Ebrahim Madadi were both still in prison.

New incidences of harassment of other labour and human rights activists were regularly being reported, they said.

They urged the ILO to intervene to secure the release of Ali Nejati, Mansour Osanloo, Ebrahim Madadi and others. They also asked the organization to impress on the Iranian authorities that Kamangar’s case should be revisited and that any plans for an execution should be called off. It should, in addition, demand that charges against the Haft Tapeh workers be dropped and full legal guarantees ensured.

http://www.itfglobal.org/index.cfm

Bus strike hope after deal struck

Dublin,Ireland - Dublin Bus has threatened a strike action that may be averted after the deal that has hammered out between trade unions and management

The two sides were locked in talks by the Labour Relations Commission consecutively about the planned of layoff about 60 workers as part of to cut cost.

But compulsory lay-off proposals have now been scrapped and all drivers are being guaranteed a minimum five days pay under a new agreement, according to trade union Siptu.