19 December, 2002Workers in the majority of European countries abandoned their trade unions in the 1990s. For the Finnish Metalworkers' Union the situation has been the opposite. The deep recession and mass unemployment at the start of the decade was followed by a unique increase in members, especially among young metalworkers. Metal World visited the northern outpost of Oulu, Finland's Silicon Valley.
19 December, 2002Luiz Inácio da Silva, better known as Lula, has been elected president of Brazil. IMF secretariat member Toni Ferigo gives his personal account of the former leader of the IMF metal-worker affiliate CNM-CUT.
18 December, 2002The Costa Rican distributor of Mercedes-Benz fired workers who were trying to form a local of the union "ANTEP".
6 May, 2002Not only did the policies of this international financial institution fail in Argentina, but they led to the country's social and economic disintegration.
6 May, 2002First hit is Baden-Württemberg, Germany's most heavily industrialised region, and Berlin-Brandenburg will follow if no settlement is reached this week.
