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Latin America
Argentina Mass protests against Labor Reform Law
On January 18, tens of thousands of workers marched and rallied in Buenos Aires, across from the Casa Rosada federal government house, denouncing the Labor Reform legislation that among other things, replaces permanent jobs with zero hour and part-time contracts and makes it easier to fire workers. The legislation leaves at the discretion of employers, overtime pay, sick pay, vacations and paternity and maternity rights. In short, the Labor Reform proposal eliminates labor rights won through decades of worker’s struggles. Similar protests took place across the country.
Additionally, the workers demand immediate wage-negotiations and an end to budget cuts aimed at reducing the number of public employees across the country by 10 percent.
The protest brought together union and non-union members from every section of the working class as well as supporters of Peronist politicians and the pseudo-left. As part of the demonstrations, workers went on a general protest strike beginning at noon (the Buenos Aires protest began at 1 PM).
In response, and in an attempt to disarm the working class, the Milei administration has declared a “45-day Truce,” postponing a discussion, by the legislature, on the Labor Reform law until February 10.
Despite this outpouring of opposition, the bureaucratic leaderships of two main trade union federations (CGT and CTA) refuse to mobilize their membership in any serious fight against the Milei administration.
Bolivian miners and truckers stage protest strike over elimination of fuel subsidies
In response to the elimination of fuel subsidies by newly installed right wing Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, the National Federation of Mining Cooperatives of Bolivia (Fencomin) led a massive nationwide mobilization December 23 through the streets of La Paz against steep gasoline price increases. From the early morning, thousands of workers from departments such as Potosí gathered in La Ceja of El Alto and marched toward the seat of government. Leaders of the miners union demanded the immediate annulment of the measures and the opening of “dialogue” with the administration.
It followed a December 19 action by truckers in the cities of La Paz and El Alto, who blocked strategic intersections demanding that the government reverse a decree (Supreme Decree 5503) that, in addition to other economic measures, eliminates fuel subsidies that have been in place for two decades.
Ending the subsidies on gasoline and diesel fuels resulted in an immediate increase in price, 86 percent for gasoline and 162 percent for diesel.
Truckers also protested in the southwestern city of Potosi.
National protests in Honduras over Electoral Fraud
On Wednesday, December 17, demonstrators surrounded Honduras’ government house in downtown Tegucigalpa, the nation’s capital, denouncing the electoral “coup” that took place on November 30. The rally, led by the Liberty and Re-foundation Party (LIBRE), and backed by workers and youth organizations, was called in defense of democracy and constitutional rights. The demonstrators are questioning the latest recount, and many are demanding new elections.
LIBRE’s presidential candidate, Rixi Moncada, addressed the rally to call for the annulment of the election, calling it “the most crooked in Honduras’ history.” Moncada blamed organized crime, Honduras’ oligarchic “ten families” and sections of the military for the tainted elections.
Honduras’s outgoing president, Xiomara Castro (also from the LIBRE party), has denounced the electoral process and the role of the Trump administration in involving itself in the electoral count and manipulating the elections by pardoning and releasing from prison convicted drug czar Juan Orlando Hernandez to engineer a military coup in order to install Trump’s favored candidate, right-winger Nasry Asfura of the National Party.
Uruguay public employees protest unpaid wages
On Friday, December 19, scores of public employees, represented by SUTIGA (Sindicato unico de trabajadores de instituciones gremiales y afines—United Union and non-union workers) rallied in Montevideo’s Plaza Goes square demanding payment for wages in arrears (500 of whom are owed 4 months wages), for contingent workers in the public welfare sectors employed by the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES).
The protest took place outside a MIDES so-called community debate event on homelessness.
The mostly young workers, some of whom face homelessness themselves, denounced, with drums and sign’s both MIDES’ attacks on their wages and its hypocrisy in dealing with the conditions faced by homeless workers across Uruguay.
Two months ago, SUTIBA contingent workers raised the same issues in a one-day strike. Despite government assurances, most of them are still waiting for their checks; “the money does not come, while politicians are lining their pockets,” declared a protester.
United States
Colorado ski patrol workers authorize strike as talks deadlock
Management at Colorado’s Telluride Mountain ski resort and its ski patrollers are stalemated over negotiations for a new contract covering over 70 members of the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association. Workers are demanding at least a $30 an hour base wage to both bring their contract in line with that of patrollers at other ski resorts and make up for past losses.
Contract talks broke off December 6 and ski patrollers have voted unanimously for a strike. Ski patrollers also want a health insurance stipend for those workers who do not receive health insurance through the resort.
Union president Graham Hoffman stated back in November that “the signs and indications that we’ve gotten in just the last week-and-a-half or two weeks, it really doesn’t seem like the company is preparing to offer us a contract that’s going to secure the votes necessary to ratify.”
A statement by resort management declared the union’s request “not feasible.” They went on to issue a posting for replacement workers with a pay range of $24.50 to $37.50 per hour. The union responded that Telluride is paying replacement workers “at a higher pay rate than is currently offered to our highly trained and skilled patrol.”
Educators in suburban, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota school district vote 98.5 percent to strike as health insurance costs skyrocket
The union representing 3,000 educators in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District announced December 20 its members voted by a 98.5 percent margin to grant strike authorization. The union, Anoka Hennepin Education Minnesota, through a social media post, declared “unaffordable health insurance costs and non-competitive pay” fueled the strike vote.
Union president John Wolhaupter told Kare 11 News, “We experienced a 22 percent increase in our premiums, which right now, since we haven’t settled our contract, our members are facing the full brunt of those costs.” Teachers are now paying $1,000 a month for health insurance.
The Anoka-Hennepin district board has indicated it will convoke a special board meeting December 22 to plan contingencies in the event of a strike. The union has not issued a strike notice up to this point.
The district is the largest in Minnesota and comprises a belt surrounding the northern and western suburbs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region. Unions representing Minneapolis and St. Paul teachers settled their contracts apart from the Anoka-Hennepin district. But up to this point, only 39 percent of school districts in Minnesota have been able to settle their contracts as schools face budget shortfalls.
Canada
Winnipeg, Manitoba meat processors set to vote on contract
More than 1,800 meat processing workers at the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba will vote on a new contract in the first week of the coming new year. The workers, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), process fresh pork into ham and bacon products. They voted on November 15 by 98 percent to authorize a strike after management presented a miserable contract offer during negotiations.
Management proposed only a $2.75 wage increase spread out over a seven-year deal. They also demanded the conversion of a defined benefit pension plan into an inferior defined contributions plan and rebuffed worker demands for paid sick leave. Most workers, many of whom are new Canadians from India, the Philippines, China and Latin America, currently earn just fifty cents per hour over the provincial minimum wage rate of $16 per hour.
However, just days after workers had authorized strike action in mid-November, management and union officials announced that a tentative contract had been reached. But instead of presenting the contents of the proposed agreement to the workers and organizing a timely ratification vote, the union announced that a ratification vote would only take place more than six weeks later with workers not receiving information on the contents of the tentative contract until shortly before the ratification vote.