Stories about Labor from April, 2006
Martinique: Gas Ration In Case of Strike
Bien Vu laments (FR) rumors of an imminent gas station strike and hopes a new twenty Euro per person ration is not in vain. “You don't want to be driving a 4X4 right now” he says.
Riots and panic in East Timor
Violence broke out in East Timor's capital Dili earlier today. Dili-gence says The usual press outlets have already reported 2 dead and 21 injured. We received a phone call from a Timorese in the current hot area Comorro. People are scared and people have seen smoke rising from the general...
Jordan: Customer Service
Speaking her mind about the ‘customer service’ in the Arab world, Khalidah says: “We see large companies with hundreds of employees and fancy titles, their organization charts can fill a whole wall, each manager has managers and those report yet to more directors, those directors report to boards and boards...
Iran: Contractual Workers Fired!
Jomhour (Persian) writes that there are collective firings of contractual workers in all over country. He adds on the other side of story government appointed employees and workers have benefited a sharp raise in their salaries. Blogger says this raise has nothing to do with productivity of these workers. This...
Polish Blogosphere Update
Ever wonder what a day in the life of someone living in Poland would look like condensed into a 10-minute video? Neither did I until I came to Poland. The Blog from Poland set up a webcam from a Warsaw city window. Can you spot the shiny, yellow and red...
Haiti: In the news
Alice Backer rounds up Haiti-related news stories that have caught her attention lately.
French Antilles: Questions about Identity and Unemployment
Questioning Identity in the Diaspora Tino Land, written by a Martiniquan blogger living in Paris, highlights the tensions that sometimes exist between Africans and French Caribbeans, criticizing French Antillians who reject their African roots and Africans who say that Antillians are “sell-outs” to Western culture: J'emmerde tout les ANTILLAIS qui...
North Korea: Migrant vulnerability
Kotaji blogger blogs on the rough and tough lives of North Korean lumberjacks and construction workers in the eastern corners of Russia.
Guatemala: Declartion Against North American Mining Firms
The Guatemala Solidarity Network is distributing a declaration, which demands that the Marlin Mine of San Marcos be closed.
Saudi Arabia: Illegal Nigerians in Saudi Arabia
Looks like the issue of the Nigerian citizens living in the Saudi Arabia illegally is increasingly becoming a chronic problem, Prometheus said.
Polish Blogosphere Update
On the literary front, As the Warsaw Crow Flies notes the death of Polish author Stanislaw Lem. On Lem, Warsaw Crow writes: Having only read his novel Solaris, I can't say I'm at all familiar with his work. But from that one book it was clear just what an exceptionally...
Brazil:Varig Airlines Bankruptcy
Brazil's Varig has joined Mexico's Aerocalifornia and Bolivia's LAB on the growing list of Latin American airlines struggling to get by according to Made in Brazil.
Call centre outsoursing woes
Filipino blogger J. Angelo Racoma questions the logic behind a bill that the US Senate Commerce Committee is considering. The bill requires that call centre employees disclose what country they are in.
South Korea: Foreign migrant workers
Occidentalism‘s Matt looks at a recent move by the South Korean government aimed at improving the situation of the country's foreign worker population. “It is claimed to be so bad that foreign workers returning to their home countries start to actively campaign against Korea,” he notes. “The most well-known case...
Barbados: “Women Need Not Apply”
Barbados Free Press scans in some local help-wanted ads to show the rampant and legal gender discrimination when it comes to getting a job.
Taiwan: Police life
Michael Turton reports in his blog The View from Taiwan on a presentation last week by Jeff Martin, Ph.D. who spent three years researching—sometimes drinking with—the Taipei police force. From The View: “Taiwanese substation policemen live a very difficult life, Jeff said, stressing the word ‘very.’ They live at the...
Pulse of the Saudi Blogosphere
It's another eventful week in the Saudi blogosphere, so let's get started with our weekly roundup… Providing a proper work environment for Saudi women was one of the major goals of the new labor law that was published few months ago, but the question is: how the employers are going...
Sri Lanka: Difference between UK and SL
London, Lanka and Drums on the difference in attitudes in Sri Lanka and the UK – “I think many of the major differences are caused by the relative labour costs. Even taking cost of living into account manual labour is far more expensive here in the UK than in Sri...
South Korea: North Korea
Orackay looks at North Korean apologist voices in the South Korean media in “just say no to workers’ rights.” “Even if one assumes that publicly taking issue with the gulags can only be motivated by selfish political motive (and that certainly seems to be the motive with some people),” writes...
Hong Kong: Labor strife
The EastSouthWestNorth blogger translates a report on a recent protest in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and finds some missing details in corresponding English-language coverage.