100,000 Workers Take Action as ‘Striketober’ Hits U.S.

Date: 15 October 2021 - 21:38

News ID: ۹۵۴۴۶

LONDON (Dispatches) - More than 100,000 U.S. workers will strike, or have threatened to in October, as a wave of industrial action dubbed “Striketober” hits America.
On Thursday, 10,000 workers at farm equipment maker John Deere walked out over pay and conditions.
Some 60,000 TV and film crew workers are set to strike on Monday, while 24,000 nurses could also protest.
It follows a rise in U.S. union activity after decades of decline, as staff demanded better rights in the pandemic.
Employers have also found themselves on the back foot amid a labor shortage that has forced them to push up wages for the lowest paid.
Thousands of other workers were already on strike in October, including 700 nurses in Massachusetts, 2,000 New York hospital workers and 1,400 Kellogg factory workers in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
Some 6,500 lecturers in California are also on the brink of a walkout.
On Thursday, left wing Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez voiced her support for the action using the hashtag #Striketober which has gone viral.
10,000 Deere & Company workers based mainly in Iowa and Illinois walked out on Thursday, in what is the largest U.S. strike since 2019.
They have rejected a new contract they say insufficiently increases wages and weakens pension rights. Deere said it was determined to reach an agreement that “put every employee in a better economic position”.
In addition, more than 24,000 nurses and other healthcare workers in California and Oregon voted on Monday to allow a strike, after pay negotiations with the private hospital group Kaiser Permanente stalled.
Among other things, they want a 4% annual pay rise and longer breaks to tackle pandemic-related burnout. Kasier says it hopes to resolve the matter swiftly.
About a third of all U.S. workers were in a union in the late 1960s, but that has declined over the decades because of anti-union laws and corporate crackdowns on organizing.

Wave of Italian Protests Against Mandatory Work Pass
In Italy, dockers at three big ports have staged protests at the requirement for all Italian workers to show a Covid pass.
The Green Pass shows whether you have had the Covid vaccine, recovered from it or had a negative test.
It became mandatory for all workplaces on Friday.
About 6,000 workers went on strike outside Trieste port, a maritime gateway for northern Italy, Germany, Austria and central Europe.
There was disruption in Genoa and Ancona too, but dockers worked normally in Italy’s other major ports at Venice, Palermo, Naples and Gioia Tauro, Ansa news agency reported.
About three million Italian workers are estimated to be still unvaccinated and protests were reported in many of the big cities: