Free Republic

The night he locked up the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama predicted that generations hence, people would look back on the historic day as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." At the time, his words reeked of hubris. Today, they look positively delusional. President Obama can't stop the oil leak in the Gulf, but he can and should be held accountable for the inept government response to cleaning it up and mitigating its worst effects on the shoreline. And you can bet that if George W. Bush were in...

Union Verdi is preparing more strikes to step up pressure on Amazon in Germany, its biggest market outside the United States, in a dispute over pay and conditions, German media reported. Workers at Amazon centers in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig will walk out for at least one day on Monday, Heiner Reimann of Verdi told daily Stuttgarter Nachrichten. The union has organized several short strikes this year in a bid to force the world's biggest Internet retailer to accept a collective agreement on employment conditions similar to deals for the mail order and retail sector, which are more generous than...

Two-thirds of Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a referendum to cap executive pay at 12 times the wage of a firm's lowest earner ... Switzerland, which has long boasted a business-friendly climate coupled with one of the highest average salaries in the world, has largely avoided the economic crisis dogging the European Union, of which it is a staunch non-member. The referendum campaign was spearheaded by the Socialist Party, plus the Greens and trade unions.

One of the UK’s largest trade unions is to ban its members from visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories on delegations organized by the Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI), a London-based organization supporting cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian workers. The GMB, which has over 617,000 members from an array of sectors, voted on Thursday at its annual conference in Plymouth to uphold a 2011 decision to “take a lead in driving forward the boycott and divestment initiatives” of “companies who profit from illegal settlements, the occupation and the construction of the wall.” Last week, after the motion was moved...

From the back of the Culinary union hall on Friday, all that could be seen were hundreds of upraised hands -- black, brown and white -- clapping to the chant "Sí se puede." They were clapping along with Geoconda Arguello Kline, an immigrant from Nicaragua who came to Las Vegas for a low-skilled job in a hotel. She learned English. She saved enough to buy a home for the family she was raising. She took advantage of job training programs to move up in her work, and she became active with the union. Now Kline, "Geo" to the union's members,...

Iran Arrests Five Trade Unionists August 12, 2007 AFP The Peninsula Iranian security forces arrested five members of Tehran's bus drivers' union after they visited the home of their imprisoned chief, the men's lawyer said yesterday. Tehran and suburbs bus drivers' union chief Mansour Ossalou, who has pushed for stronger trade unions in Iran, has been detained in Tehran's Evin prison since July after being convicted of acting against national security. "Ebrahim Madadi, Yagoub Salimi, Davoud Razavi and Ghojari and Homayoun Jaberi went to Mansour Ossalou's house to meet his family, where they were arrested," said lawyer Parviz Khorshid, quoted...

On Sunday France elected a pro-American, conservative named Nicolas Sarkozy as its new president. The 52-year-old who beat back by 10 percentage points his Socialist rival, promises an unabashed Thatcherite agenda for France. Sarkozy also replaces the embattled Jacques Chirac, a relic from an earlier age of French politics, who made anti-Americanism his hallmark. Sarkozy campaigned on a platform of sweeping reforms, pledging to dismantle large portions of the social welfare state and to make France competitive on world markets again. He also pledged to reduce taxes, shrink the size of government and shut down redundant government programs. Carrying out...

There's a certain aspect of this issue that the article below fails to comment upon, therefore, please read my comments to the article. "Sweden: the world's most modern country? Is Sweden the most modern country in the world? And are Swedes the most insecure people on this planet? These two questions are central to a new series on SVT due to premiere on Wednesday. The programme, 'Världen's modernaste land' (‘The most modern country in the world’), is a reflection on what it means to be a Swede. The presenter, television-friendly linguist Fredrik Lindström, has already notched up two major successes...

Since the recession of the early 1990's, Sweden has successfully steered away from socialist experiments, trade union hegemony over society as well as excessive government intervention in business life. Contrary to Germany, Italy and France, the scandinavian countries are no longer stern believers in the outdated "Swedish Model" of the 1950 - 1970 era. Hardly surprising to friends of capitalistic progress, swedes nowadays are used to reading news like this: "Sweden's GDP: +5.5 per cent in second quarter 2006 Sweden's GDP rose by 5.5 per cent during the second quarter, calendar-adjusted and compared to the second quarter of 2005. Seasonally...

BANGALORE: From Europe and North America, India's offshore workers call center operators, data entry clerks and telemarketers may seem like the sweatshop laborers of the information age, toiling long hours for meager pay. But an international alliance of unions that wants to organize them is finding a very different reality in India: many think of themselves as members of a relatively well-paid, respected professional elite in no need of a union's protection. "I know these young people have a negative image about unions," says Narayan Ram Hegde of Union Network International, a global alliance of 900 unions. But "these professionals...

VICTORIAN churches will today throw their weight behind the union movement with a service to oppose the Federal Government's proposed workplace relations changes. The Victorian Council of Churches said the ecumenical service, led by Anglican Bishop Philip Huggins, would express the churches' concern about the plans. Bishop Huggins said workers had a right to "safe and healthy workplaces", including collective bargaining, union representation, minimum wages and conditions of employment. "It is intensely disappointing that our Federal Government should be bringing before us proposals that threaten these hard won and historic principles," he said. "Jesus' teaching vividly endorses that we should...

PARIS (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of French people took part in demonstrations across the country to protest against government plans to reform the 35-hour work week. Organized by an alliance of trade-unions and backed by the opposition Socialist party (PS), more than half a million people took part in marches in 100 towns and cities -- with 90,000 joining the largest demonstration in Paris. Police put the overall figure at slightly more than 250,000. The protests came as a bill to enable private sector employees to opt for longer hours makes its way through parliament. The bill is expected...

ICTU's (Irish Congress of Trade Unions) economic advisor has said Ireland's low rate of corporate tax is unsustainable and is fuelling what he called a 'race to the bottom'. Paul Sweeney, speaking at CORI's annual social policy conference, said the reduction of the rate to 12.5% was a 'major mistake', as an industrial policy based on artificial subsidies was not sustainable. He said the enlargement of the EU meant that Ireland was being pursued by new members in the tax competition race, citing Estonia, which has a rate of zero for many firms. 'This is a race Ireland cannot win,'...