· November, 2009

Stories about Labor from November, 2009

Egypt: Spotlight on Zabbaleen

  30 November 2009

Regine, at we make money not art, introduces us to photographs by Bas Princen of Cairo's Mokattam Ridge or Garbage City (Zabbaleen) – where a community of mainly Coptic Christians live and make a living out of collecting, sorting and disposing of Cairo's waste.

Poland: Online Campaigning for the Rights of Employees

  20 November 2009

Sylwia Presley writes about the plight of and online campaigning by a group Polish citizens who work for IKEA via another, smaller, company called Solid Security: they claim to be earning amounts below the national minimal wage, being assigned to work up to 16 hours daily and lacking the basic benefits.

Japan: When an Employee Catches H1N1

  16 November 2009

The Kirai blog describes what happened at his company after an employee caught a case of H1N1: “Notice that from his perspective, he is NOT a victim, he is the culprit of having caused so much trouble to the company: because he couldn’t work for one week and we had...

Peru: Blind Lawyer Strives to Be Judge

  15 November 2009

Peruvian lawyer Edwin Béjar Rojas' goal of becoming a judge had been interrupted by National Council of the Magistracy, who rejected his candidacy because of his visual impairment and refused to give him the test.

Uzbekistan: Thank you, cotton-growers!

  8 November 2009

Musafirbek says that the president of Uzbekistan officially thanked the cotton-growers for gathering the harvest of this strategic product for Uzbekistan. However, those who sweat away, collecting this cotton (including children) were not mentioned in the president’s address.

China: The worker struggle

  3 November 2009

The China study has an in-depth report on the rise of semi-autonomous worker struggle through collective actions in China..

Russia: Potential for Rebellion in Toliatti

  3 November 2009

Window on Eurasia reports that “Russian government plans to lay off 50,000 autoworkers in Toliatti […] have sparked rumors that Moscow plans to introduce interior ministry troops to keep order and that at least some of the workers plan to use arms to defend their jobs.”