For the past 18 months, members of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association have been on the front line of the global battle against outsourcing. On 27 September 2011, over 2,000 ground staff were evicted from Manila International Airport. Workers were protesting against a management outsourcing scheme that would have stripped their wages by half, and destroyed their conditions.  There has been a continuous protest camp and regular protests since that time, with over 700 workers still continuing the struggle.  

A local Sri Lankan garment union, FTZ-GSEU recently organised a demonstration to safeguard workers jobs and entitlements.  In support of this, the global union federation IndustriALL put out a statement against the global ‘race to the bottom’ employed by garment companies. The Federation called on garment workers internationally to come together, speak with one voice and to fight for their rights as a united class organised internationally.

In the last few weeks there has been a spate of industrial action by migrant workers in Malaysia over pay and conditions. Like in the rest of the world, migrant workers in Malaysia can be used as cheaper labour due to their weak bargaining power and insecure residence status. The catalyst for this latest wave of strikes was the announcement by the Malaysian government of an increase to the minimum wage, but this would only apply to local workers. Strikes by migrant workers broke out in many locations across a range of industries.

The factory fire at the Tazreen garment factory was one of two major disasters that affected garment workers last year. For the last few months, trade unions and family members have been campaigning to get compensation for the dead and injured. While the campaign for compensation is very important, only the development of active and independent trade unions will ensure that such disasters will not happen again in the future.

Following on from the historic strike in India a few weeks ago where around 100 million workers participated, workers in many other countries are also fighting back against the continuing capitalist crisis. While workers in countries like Egypt and Tunisia have been at the forefront of uprisings in the last couple of years, we are now seeing workers in countries like Iraq and Lebanon also coming out in mobilisations. In Europe, Greek workers are now being subjected to draconian anti strike laws, while workers in Portugal and Spain have recently staged massive nationwide protests.  

In an effort to increase the impact of such protests, and to overcome national boundaries and divisions, a new European day of protest is being organised for the 13 and 14 of March, see here and here, while a World Social Forum meeting will occur in Tunisia from the 26 to the 30 of March to discuss how to organise internationally more effectively.

A female leader of a community group in the Philippines was killed on 4th March. Cristina Morales Jose was shot and killed by an unidentified assassin on a motorcycle. She was a leader of the group Barug Katawhan, an organization of survivors of the typhoon Pablo disaster. She earlier exposed the food blockade and militarization of relief operations conducted by 67th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army.  

As a job, journalists face many pressures with many being killed while doing their job. While some are killed in war situations, too many die because they are targeted by powerful forces in society. Just last week, three journalists were murdered in Pakistan. All had received death threats. Unfortunately a climate of impunity has developed in Pakistan where the perpetrators of these killings feel they are safe from prosecution. A delegation from the International Federation of Journalists is in Pakistan to investigate the issues that journalists in Pakistan face and to protest against the current climate of impunity.

Workers in Singapore are heavily constrained in terms of what actions they can take and the recent strike by bus drivers has brought a swift reaction from the government. Not only were many of the bus drivers deported back to China, but a court recently jailed four organisers for up to seven weeks. The courts quite clearly want these sentences to deter other workers from taking industrial action.

This strike has highlighted the reliance by Singapore on underpaid migrant labour.

Workers have been fighting the issue of subcontracting at companies like Daewoo for many years. In a positive development, the South Korean Supreme court has judged that the company’s use of subcontracting in its automobile production lines was illegal. It will need to be seen if this translates into better working condition for the workers. In the same week, a protest camp and memorial set up by laid-off workers from Ssangyong Motor Company was torched by an assailant. The workers have pledged to continue with their protest camp.