5 July, 2011The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) won a definitive judgment from Fair Work Australia on 24 June that grants the union right of entry to lunch rooms at Rio Tinto's Alcan aluminium smelter in Bell Bay, Tasmania. The ruling ends months of legal wrangling and should serve as a precedent against employers from blocking legitimate union access to workers on job sites.
5 July, 2011General Electric (GE) workers in America ratified a four-year labour agreement in late June that now sets a pattern for 15,200 unionised GE workers in the US.
16 June, 2011For almost 40 days the workers of Paraná, Brazil, were on strike demanding better pay through profit sharing.
24 June, 2011In a landmark court ruling, cancer among workers in the semiconductor industry is considered for the first time to be an occupational disease.
24 June, 2011For the first time, a delegation of IMF affiliated unions visits the Paris Air Show, emphasizing the importance of labour in the success of the industry.
23 June, 2011During recent months government pressure against the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FTUU) and its affiliates has significantly increased. Many trade union leaders, including FTUU president Vasyl Hara, were summoned to the prosecutor's office. IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina sent a letter to the president of Ukraine Victor Yanukovich demanding an immediate stop to the interference in trade union affairs.
23 June, 2011Union organizers seek out agency workers to ensure they receive due wages. The work has resulted in substantial retroactive salary increases -- and new members.
2 July, 2011The twenty percent wage increase that has been awarded to workers in the engineering, iron and steel industry has been welcomed with mixed feelings. Some union members think the twenty percent is a job well done as it meet the mandate given to the National Engineering Workers Union (NEWU), that the negotiators may not accept anything less than a twenty percent increase. For others, a much higher increase was needed as the new wage minimum still means that workers of the lowest grade get half of what is required to earn at the level of the poverty datum line.
29 June, 2011Last year Honeywell Inc. ruthlessly locked-out 228 American steelworkers at a uranium conversion plant in Metropolis, Illinois, and used scabs to replace them. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration remarked on 17 serious safety violations that jeopardized community safety.
