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Source: In These Times
The following letter appeared in Tuesday’s Columbian:
As a person of faith, I believe in the power of nonviolent protest for social change. As a citizen, I believe in the right to peaceful demonstrations.
I was therefore disheartened to learn that the Vancouver Police and the Clark County Sheriff’s departments recently responded to a peaceful demonstration with more than 25 squad cars and apparent readiness for tactical action.
When members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union arrived outside the hotel that houses non-union replacement workers hired during a lockout, they arrived with nothing but their picket signs and their right to free speech.
While United Grain Corporation has an enormous amount of money and power at its disposal in imposing the lockout, these workers depend upon their public voice.
In addition to being a waste of taxpayer money, such a gross over-reaction by the police and sheriff’s department does not make me feel more safe.
It makes me feel less safe.
It makes me feel like I do not live in a place that cherishes freedom as I do.
When there are peaceful demonstrations in the future, let the...
Hong Kong’s government made a renewed effort to end the longest strike at the city’s container terminal after workers at billionaire Li Ka-shing’s docks scaled back demands for a 23 percent wage increase.
The labor department invited the Union of Hong Kong Dockers to talks [Monday], where contractors of Li’s Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. will be present, employees’ union representative Wong Yu-loy said. Earlier talks aimed at defusing the four-week dispute failed after the workers rejected a 7 percent pay raise.
Suggestions that the strike is over is “nonsense” and it’s the biggest weapon for the workers to seek a fair treatment, said Ho Wai-hong, another representative of the Union of Hong Kong Dockers.
The workers are willing to drop an earlier demand of a 23 percent pay increase, Lee Cheuk-yan, the general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said by phone.
“It’s open to discussions,” Lee said by phone on April 27. Workers would still want an increase in the “double digits,” he said.
About 450 dock workers, mostly crane operators and stevedores, walked out on March 28, demanding higher wages and better working...
Source: In These Times
Source: USAS
Source: HP
Source: Komo News
Source: Journal Sentinel
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