Global Communicators Will Discuss Union Organizing  Strategies
Communicators from different parts of the world will discuss union organizing campaigns, innovative strategies and new media techniques at a forum, jointly sponsored by the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF). The two-day meeting will be held in Frankfurt, Germany on Nov. 17-18.

The forum will focus primarily on new media techniques and web-based campaign tools that help trade unions to achieve both union-building and organizing, as well as to make breakthroughs on issues like climate change and the spread of precarious (temporary) work. Participants will discuss examples of how Facebook, YouTube, Flicks and others are being successfully used by unions across the metalworking industry.

The forum will also serve to improve joint global campaigning by helping unions to deal with increased globalization and outsourcing, and provide better protection for worker rights.

South Africa to Fire Striking Troops
South Africa’s Defense Minister could dismiss more than 1,000  soldiers who left their barracks and marched to Pretoria, the capital, on Aug. 26, insisting on seeing President Jacob Zuma to seek a 30 percent pay raise. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the marchers, who reportedly became unruly and trashed police cars.

The Department of Defense and Military Veterans told BBC that legal processes are being taken to dismiss between 1,500 and 2,000 soldiers.   “We want them to face the highest penalty, which is dismissal,” said department spokesperson  Ndivhuwo Mabaya.

South African Defense Union spokesperson Pikkie Greeff said soldiers had the  right to protest because they were South Africa’s worst-paid civil servants.

Strike Wave Sweeps Serbia over Non-Payment of Wages and Benefits
A hot summer of discontent has taken over Serbia; Some 33,000 people go on strike daily in 40 to 45 firms, according to union statistics. They are mostly employees of privatized companies who have not been paid salaries or social and health security benefits for months now. Since mid-August, protesters have been blocking traffic for hours outside the offices of the Serbian Privatization Agency and other government buildings in Belgrade.

Earlier this month in central Serbia, police were called in to remove hundreds of workers who lay down day after day on railway tracks near Lapova, about 240 miles south of Belgrade. The now private owner of a company that manufactures spare parts for autos and electricity generation, has not paid them for months.

What is heard most often from workers is a demand that the government take back the companies it privatized, says Miroslav Prokopjevic, from the Free Market Center. “That sounds like the times of socialism, when the state took care of everything and provided life-long guarantees of employment,  but those times cannot come back,” Prokopjevic said.

Blacklisted Workers in Manchester, U.K. Stage Job Protest
Construction workers, who claim they are being denied jobs because of an illegal blacklist, have protested outside a  £350 million  ($570 million) shopping development. The men believe their union activities are being used against them by firms involved in the Rock Triangle project in Bury, Greater Manchester. They were among 3,213 workers named in an illegal database which was exposed in court last month.

The company was one of more than 40 who paid for access to the database of the 3,213 workers run by  businessman Ian Kerr, the Information Commissioner’s Office  (ICO) said. Kerr was fined £5,000  ($8,100) after pleading guilty to breaching the Data Protection Act.

The database included names, dates of birth, national insurance numbers and details of whether an individual had any connections to trade union activity, Regulations to outlaw secret blacklists will be introduced in new legislation later in 2009.

Foreign Firms Block Job Security Bill in Philippine Congress
The Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) lashed out at foreign business groups and domestic foes for pressing the Congress to dump a bill that aims to strengthen the “security of tenure” of private sector workers and to strictly regulate the much-abused use of temporary labor.  The bill has also proposed a 20 percent cap on the number of casual and contractual workers that a firm may hire in relation to its total workforce, with stiff penalties for violators.

“It’s about time that we put a stop to the longtime and rampant practice of unscrupulous employers   in maintaining “perpetual or perennial” casual workers, who, because of their employment status, are deprived of many rights and benefits that regular employees are entitled to,” said Edwin Bustillos, APL deputy secretary-general, in expressing the labor center’s support for the bill (HB 6532).

Of the  35 million people employed in the Philippine workforce, about 41 percent, or 14.3 million, are on some form of part time, unprotected job  Non-regular workers are not allowed to join unions, making them more vulnerable to abuses by employers.

Korean University Fires 70 Lecturers Who Lack Doctorate Degrees
Busan National University announced on Aug. 27 that it has let go 70 contract lecturers that had been teaching at the university for over two years. This was the first time that a national university had discharged any lecturer with that amount of teaching experience, using the Irregular Protection Law. The now jobless lecturers are protesting loudly that they have been let go unjustly.

The university announcement, which came just before the start of the second or fall semester, said that the reason for the dismissals was because the lecturers lacked doctoral degrees,  It said that if they had allowed the lecturers to continue their employment, they would have had to give them permanent contracts, in accordance with the Irregular Protective Law.

The  mass firing of lecturers is also taking place in private colleges and  universities.  When  Yeungnam University moved to fire about 100 contract lecturers on Aug. 22, there were protests from the university staff. It then switched to a plan to cut lecturers’ hours to under five a week in the second semester to  avoid violating the Irregular Protective Law.