http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8185877.stm Commandos tackle S Korea strikers South Korean police commandos have dropped from helicopters to try to end a factory sit-in by sacked workers demanding to keep their jobs. More than 500 workers have occupied the main car plant of Ssangyong Motors for more than 10 weeks. For a second day, police battled laid-off workers armed with metal rods and throwing projectiles. Ssangyong is under court-approved bankruptcy protection and is trying to cut thousands of jobs to stay afloat. Police said about 50 people were injured in Wednesday's clashes. The commandos dropped by rope from helicopters while others were lowered in a shipping container onto the roof of one of the paint shops. Other police commandos charged the building with ladders. The police have now cleared most of the factory at Pyeongtaek, 70km (43 miles) south of Seoul, but a hard core of workers remains in one of the paint shops at the complex, officials said. Police have been worried about sparking a fire at the paint shops, where highly-flammable materials are stored. Workers fought back with fire bombs and other projectiles Ssangyong has laid-off more than 2,600 workers, about one-third of its labour force. About 1,600 have accepted voluntary redundancy but the others decided to occupy the plant. Negotiations to end the occupation broke off on Sunday, with the union representing workers rejecting a management proposal to reduce the number of layoffs. The union insists that no workers should be dismissed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8185853.stm Labour unrest grips New Caledonia Union activists have shot and wounded two police officers during clashes in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, local officials say. Four activists were injured and 13 detained in the clashes in Saint Louis, near the main island's capital Noumea. The USTKE union represents indigenous Kanak workers. It has blocked roads and businesses with barricades of burning tyres during a week-long strike. New Caledonia saw serious ethnic unrest during the 1980s. France is sending extra gendarmes to New Caledonia to end the violence. The latest trouble sprang from a dispute with the management of the local airline Aircal. In June the USTKE leader Gerard Jodar was jailed for a year for obstructing an aircraft, after militant USTKE members invaded the Magenta airfield, French media report. The French high commissioner in New Caledonia, Yves Dassonville, said "this is no longer trade unionism, it's pure violence, it's hooliganism". Several businesses have been forced to shut down because of the protesters' action. Under the 1998 Noumea Accord, New Caledonia received greater autonomy from France. It also created New Caledonian citizenship. In 2006 the French parliament approved plans to restrict the voting rights of French citizens in the territory, meaning that Kanaks would get real power to run their own affairs. I must admit that I am all for the existence of Union and them standing up for Worker's rights, but this seems to be a little overboard. Protesting against a company laying people off because it needs to stay afloat and blocking roads and businnesses can only lead to greater economic unrest and seems to be detrimental to their goals.
I tend to agree, the two unions aren't the issue here, plenty of reasons to complain about unions but does anybody think these two situations would've been avoided if only the workers weren't unionized?
Decisions for "workers of the world [to] unite"/ unions in businesses, I don't think is the problem. I will come out in defence of unions having the right to exist, but increasingly this type of course of action (an increasingly violent approach) is outside the remit of unions and detrimental to their stated goals.
Actually if they want to give these people a real lesson let them keep their jobs. Then when the business goes out of business everyone is laid off.
Valid point, not only is this not about the unions mentioned but it actually hurts their legitimate goals.
You would not be happy in France. This happens all the time over here. It is so common no one even pays any attention to it any more.
Actually, the unions cause the kind of mentality on display here. They're entitled to a job, and the big mean business fat-cats are taking those jobs away. That's what Unionism teaches -- and it has done more to foster violence than most other organizations. You don't have the right to a job, unlike what a union says, and when the deluded meet up with reality, the clash can get violent. If they'd belonged to a professional organization, probably not. Most of them try to make their members better employees, not tell them that they're entitled to a job until age 65.
Unions exist in a world free of economic consequences. That world and the real world bear little resemblence. The police ought to ruthlessly drive these assholes out. They're laid off. It's over.
That's if they don't burn your jeep to the ground when you are sleeping. It's the new thing over there. Async is it true the government is suppressing the true number of cars being burned on a regular basis now?
