Tuesday, November 09, 2010


INTERNATIONAL LABOUR RUSSIA:
FULL TIME WORK DEMANDED AT HEINEKEN IN ST. PETERSBURG:
The following news story highlighting the struggle at the Heineken brewery in St. Petersburg Russia comes from the international union federation the IUF.
RLRLRLRLRLRL

Heineken St-Petersburg union demands restrictions on precarious jobs
News 05-11-2010
The union of workers at the Heineken brewery in St-Petersburg, Russia held a picket at the plant’s gates on October 18 to highlight their call for negotiations to reverse the creeping expansion of agency labour at the plant. Members of the city’s other unions in the food and beverage sectors took part in the action.

Since last November the union has been in negotiations with Heineken management to develop a program for safeguarding permanent jobs, including restrictions on the use of agency labour. But after nearly a year, management still insists that it’s only obligation is to respect the minimum requirements of the Labour Code. The union naturally contends that this is hardly a negotiating position, since the Labour Code simply specifies the minimum legal conditions which have to be adhered to.

Eleven months of fruitless negotiations prompted the union to hold a picket to publicly highlight the negotiating deadlock and the wider, negative impact of precarious work on Heineken workers, on trade union rights and on tax revenue and public finances. The union has received support for their struggle from the Heineken European Works Council and the Dutch FNV, in addition to local support from the IUF.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leaving a tag is petty vandalism. But combining graffiti with a manifesto promising that the perpetrator will "fuck you up" goes beyond petty vandalism in a big way. This is serious stuff.

mollymew said...

This obviously belongs as a comment on the previous post. I obviously disagree with the commentator about the "seriousness" of the matter. To my minds the vandalism was indeed petty and the "manifesto" childish. The only "serious" consequence is that it leads to hysteria about the so-called threat the vandals might pose, and this is only ! serious to those who actually oppose the policies of civic governments such as Victoria's.
If you want "serious stuff" in the news recently takea look at the Hrper government's promise to keep troops in Afghanistan after the proposed withdrawal date next year.