Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Worker ID Card at Center of Immigration Plan-Demos Pushing National Biometric Card For All Workers "It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy,"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575110124037066854.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEADNewsCollection

ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan

By LAURA MECKLER

Customs and Border Protection agent Jesus Gomez checks a passport at the vehicle crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in California.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

Costa Rica: Dock workers mobilise against government interference in union
http://www.labournet.net/docks2/1003/costar1.html

Costa Rica: Dock workers mobilise against government interference in union

Report by Movement towards Socialism (MAS)
Published: 05/03/10

via Martin Ralph

Dock workers in Limon, the Caribbean region of Costa Rica, have had several days fighting against government interference in their union, Sintrajap.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security created on 15 January a new leadership for the organization, elected in an unofficial meeting, convened by the president of the company. On 23 February, Sintrajap general secretary, Ronaldo blear, was reported to be sacked.

His replacement, Douglas Brenes, is a friend of the government, who promotes the privatization of ports in the region. In exchange for the support of workers, the government even offered a “compensation” of $ 137 million to the port. Another objective is to attack the labor rights of the port.

In response to the authoritarian intervention in the labor movement, unions in the province of Limon plan to strike, in addition to entering in court to contest the possession of the leadership submissive to the government of Óscar Arias.

Militants win Philippine Airlines Ground Crew union elections after 12 year union struggle
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20100228-255836/Militants-win-PAL-union-elections

Militants win PAL union elections

INQUIRER.net
First Posted 11:35:00 02/28/2010

Filed Under: Labor, Air Transport

MANILA, Philippines—Militants won a landslide victory in the elections for the Philippine Airlines (PAL) ground crew union on February 25, twelve years after the controversial moratorium in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) of 1998, the PAL Employees Association (Palea) said in a news release over the weekend.

“After 12 long years, PAL employees again have a union that will protect their rights and welfare, including job security,” said Gerry Rivera, who will assume the position of Palea president on March 29.

Rivera said his group, party-list group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), campaigned on a platform of defending job security, will immediately face a challenge as PAL reportedly plans to spin off departments and lay off employees this coming April.

PM members won the top three national union positions and their local party called Sulong Paleans cornered 13 of the 21-member union board during the elections held last Thursday, February 25. But the ballots were only finally tallied Friday night with the winners proclaimed by the union Commission on Elections and representatives of the labor department’s Metro Manila office, the news release said.

3/6 SF Forum-Report On The Struggles From Three Continents-Japan, US &
Turkey "The Global Struggle For Public Education, Against
Privatization & For Working Class Solidarity"
Report On The Struggles From Three Continents-Japan, US And Turkey
The Global Struggle
For Public Education, Against Privatization & For Working Class
Solidarity
Reports/Video/Songs
Saturday March 6, 2010 7:00 PM
522 Valencia St./16th St San Francisco
Donation Requested $5.00
Potluck
Funds will be sent to Tekel hunger strikers in Instanbul, Turkey
Join with Japanese Zengakuren students from who have been fighting
privatization and militarization. They are visiting the US to join in
the March 4, 2010 day of action and strikes. Also US transport
workers, Students and trade unionists and a Report & video on the
national struggle of the Turkish Tekel Workers
The global struggle against capitalism and the defense of the working
class is escalating internationally. A delegation of Japanese student
activists who are members of Zengakuren will report on the fight
against privatization of the Japanese universities and the repression
against workers and students fighting militarization as well as the

900 axed Japan JNR rail unionists may get ¥29.5 million each in new deal
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100225a2.html

Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010

900 axed JNR unionists may get ¥29.5 million each
Kyodo News
A 23-year-old dispute over the dismissal of unionized workers at the Japanese National Railways may finally be heading toward a resolution now that the ruling bloc and an opposition party have drafted a ¥27 billion settlement plan.

The package, hammered out Tuesday by the three coalition partners andNew Komeito, calls for a payment of ¥29.5 million each to about 900 former JNR workers who have sued over their dismissal and asks the current Japan Railway companies to hire about 230 of them who are 55 years old or younger, according to sources.

In exchange, the workers will drop their lawsuits.

The proposed ¥27 billion payout would be undertaken by the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an independent administrative agency that inherited JNR's debts after it was privatized and split up in 1987.

Representatives of the railway agency and the National Railway Workers Union, known as Kokuro, are expected to sign a compromise deal based on the package, the sources said.

Release The Japan Hosei University 6
Statement Of The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

The Bay Area Transport Workers Solidarity Committee www.transportworkers.org calls for the immediate release
of 6 student activists from jail. They were jailed as a result of a political crackdown of
students protesting and organizing against privatization and militarization of Japanese education.
The university management went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Court to get an injunction to prevent the leafleting and
rallying on public streets in Tokyo next to Hosei University. Students and activists were arrested for leafletting and rallying
next to the university. This attack on basic democratic rights is inexcusable and we call for the immediate release of
these students and the dropping of charges of many others who have been arrested.
These students have stood against privatization of education and public services including transportation in Japan.
Transport Workers Solidarity Committee
2/18/2010

The Charleston Five--10 Years Later
http://ilcaonline.org/content/charleston-five-10-years-later

A Call to Remember the Charleston Five--10 Years Later

Commemorating the Struggle, Celebrating the Victory, Charting the Future

February 25 & 26, 2010

Charleston, South Carolina

The Charleston Five.
On the night of Jan. 19, 2000, South Carolina law enforcement agencies teamed up to send a military style police force of 600 to attack a picket line of longshoremen at the port of Charleston who were defending their union jobs against Nordana, a Danish shipping line. The police brutality against International Longshoremen Association Local 1422, a 98 percent African American local, became a bloody war scene, with many workers injured and hospitalized, including Local 1422 President Ken Riley.
Living up to the ugly legacy of the Old South, the right-wing Republican State Attorney General, Charles Condon, the former chairman of the George W. Bush for President campaign in South Carolina, turned reality on its head and charged five longshoremen, four black and one white, with conspiracy to riot felonies. A global and national solidarity movement to Free the Charleston 5 arose in response and became one of the most significant victories of our time.

Hands Off Chicago CTA ATU 241 Bus Driver Ricardo Mendoza!

http://www.spartacist.org/english/wv/949/mendoza.html

Cop Vendetta Against Chicago Bus Driver
Hands Off Ricardo Mendoza!
CHICAGO—On November 7, Chicago police arrested bus driver Ricardo Mendoza on bogus felony charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing justice, with a judge requiring him to post a $50,000 bond. Earlier, unmarked police SUVs repeatedly circled past Mendoza’s house, according to his union, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 241. What was Mendoza’s “crime”? He had been brutally beaten by an off-duty cop two months before.

On September 12, Sgt. Thomas O’Grady attacked Mendoza as he was driving the 62 Archer bus in Chicago’s Loop business district. The cop, who claimed that Mendoza’s bus cut him off while he was riding a bicycle, climbed onto the bus in a fury and punched Mendoza in the face, breaking his glasses. It was not until O’Grady stormed onto the bus a second time that two uniformed officers who happened to be on board finally physically restrained him. Mendoza was treated at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital emergency room and referred to a specialist for his eye injuries. He has not been able to work since the assault. As usual, the cop who committed the assault goes uncharged.

NAACP, 3 ex-workers sue US Airways in Philadelphia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/06/AR2010010604422.html?hpid=sec-business

NAACP, 3 ex-workers sue US Airways in Philadelphia

The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 6, 2010; 7:40 PM

PHILADELPHIA -- Three fired employees are suing US Airways, alleging the airline operated a racially hostile workplace in Philadelphia and fired black employees without grounds.

The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People joined the suit filed Tuesday by three black women. They say the airline at Philadelphia International Airport assigned black workers to smaller terminals or flights with more black passengers.

Plaintiff Tiffany Salters of Sicklerville, N.J., also says she lost her management job in customer service in 2007 after being wrongly blamed for a small security breach.

Airline spokesman Morgan Durrant says US Airways is committed to diversity and nondiscrimination and investigates all related complaints.