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Source: AFL-CIO
Source: AFL-CIO
Source: Albany Times-Union
ILWU International President Robert McEllrath and Panama Canal Pilots Union officer Capt. Rainiero Salas view the ILWU logo at the 2012 ILWU Convention in San Diego, June 2012. Panama has been included in the logo in solidarity with the U.S. and Canada with the new affiliation of the Panama Pilots union with the ILWU. Photo by Lewis Wright.
Delegates to the 35th convention of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union [last week] voted unanimously to affiliate with the Panama Canal Pilots Union.
The 250-member union represents pilots who guide ships through the canal, providing passage for vessels moving between Asia and the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.
The affiliation follows a long history of partnerships formed by the West Coast dockworkers with maritime unions in other regions of the world. As ILWU President Bob McEllrath stated in September when the Panamanians announced their intention to affiliate with the ILWU, “With so many employers now going global, it’s critical for workers around the globe to join forces and work together.”
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This London School of Economics and Political Science article exposes the U.S. government’s role in the poor living conditions that led to the Egyptian uprising last year:
When [Egyptian workers and activists] took to the streets last year it was not only against tyranny and political repression, but also against the neoliberal economic order – designed with the help of the United States – that has generated hunger, poverty and inequality in Egypt since the 1980s. If we measure these elections against the people’s initial aspirations for a new society, it’s clear that they fall far short of success.
Neoliberalism first came to Egypt when Mubarak signed structural adjustment agreements with the IMF and the World Bank in 1991. But the United States had been pushing for neoliberal reforms long before then. In addition to $1.3 billion per year in military aid, the US disbursed around $815 million per year through USAid in order to remake Egypt’s economy in line with Washington Consensus policies. In 1994 USAid paid to reshuffle the cabinet and bring in a new prime minister – Kamal el-Ganzouri – who would endorse a neoliberal vision of private, export-oriented growth...
Port of Seattle and Mt. Rainier
The Port of Seattle, a business association and the longshoremen union characterized a proposed new events arena in Seattle’s industrial district as a “land grab” that threatens jobs because it could increase traffic and land value.
“This is just not about a basketball arena. This is about a land grab in the Sodo area and changing it,” Herald Ugles of the longshoremen union told the Seattle City Council on Thursday. “You can build a basketball arena anywhere. But you cannot build a world class deep water port anywhere. And that’s what we have in Seattle right now.”
The group’s comments came as the city traffic study funded by the private investor concluded that additional traffic brought by events at the arena would not have a major impact on port and freight operations.
From CBS Local
Canada produced 67.3 million of tonnes of coal in 2011 according to the preliminary results of a PwC report on the industry, generating revenues of $6.5 billion. About 40 per cent of that is exported.Despite a drop in prices in China, Canadian coal companies are not slowing down exploration programs or development of new mines.
“There’s volatility in the market but we think the coal market will continue to grow and there will be opportunities for Canadian companies,” Janice Plumstead, director of consulting and deals at PwC said Monday.
“What we see is companies are investing in mine development, they are doing exploration and they are looking for new deposits. There is the expectation that there will be new opportunities to export to Asia,” she said in an interview after making a presentation at the Coal Association of Canada’s national conference in Vancouver.
Plumstead said that despite the drop in prices, coal remains profitable. Producers, she said, “are pleased.”
More in the Vancouver Sun
Source: All Gov
Container shipping freight rates are profitable again and could rise further if trade picks up over the summer, the head of A.P. Moller-Maersk, the Danish shipping and oil group, said on Thursday.
The recovery in rates could signal a brighter outlook for the global shipping industry, which has struggled to emerge from a four-year slump caused by oversupply of vessels and weak demand due to the sluggish world economy.
More at Reuters
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