Argos flies in scab workers

BRITISH company Argos, which operates over 680 stores across Ireland and Britain, flew in scab labour to cover the shifts of staff involved in work-stoppages over a pay dispute.
Eighteen branches of the store had pickets placed on them over the weekend, including Drogheda, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny and Athlone.
Retail union Mandate said that they are seeking a pay-rise of 10 per cent which equates to roughly a 90c increase an hour for most workers. The union is also seeking re-establishment of negotiating rights with the company which they had up until last year. Argos now claims that it applies increases only in line with the National Wage Agreement and will not negotiate with Mandate, despite their representation of 50 per cent of Argos’s 1,200 workers. 
Argos are no strangers to industrial action and it was the actions of company management back in 2001 that sparked public outrage when they sacked a number of workers who refused to work on a Sunday in Scotland, which eventually led to the introduction of legislation that prevented them from doing so in the future.

Migrant workers face homelessness as governments block worker protections 

THE Irish Congress of Trade Unions this week claimed that there are huge numbers of migrant workers facing homelessness and destitution as a result of the Irish and British governments’ eagerness to block efforts being made at EU level to give them some kind of protection in their workplaces.
The German and Danish governments are also against this initiative.
The plans within the EU (Directive on Agency Workers) were an attempt to give agency workers the same employment rights and protections as permanent staff.
The Assistant General Secretary of ICTU, Peter Bunting, said that he is “alarmed” at the number of migrant workers who found themselves laid off at the end of November due to what he called unscrupulous companies abusing cheap labour throughout the year. “Gaps in conditions and security increase precariousness and weaken the collective strength of the workforce. That division only assists slum bosses to undercut good employers with a sense of ethos and decency.”
Agency workers have little or no protection and no access to sick pay. According to SIPTU, their exploitation threatens the rest of the workforce as it undermines their pay and conditions unless the practise of agency workforce exploitation is ended.

Mexican workers take over sugar mills

WORKERS in the sugar cane mills in Mexico, the sixth-largest producer of the crop across the globe, have shut down production in all mills throughout the Latin American state as they demand increase in prices from the mills.
There are 106,000 workers involved in the action across 15 states and workers have prevented the processing of sugar cane. It is expected that they will continue to do so until they receive the increases. Most are represented by the National Sugar Cane Union.
The dispute has escalated due to fears of farmers and sugar-workers that the price of the product they work with will fall rapidly on 1 January when the American Free Trade Agreement opens the Mexican market to US sugar. The price has already fallen a massive 28 per cent already this year on the Mexican market.