23/11/2025
An extensive change to the Labour laws of India has been made at a time when India has been heralded as “one of the most attractive destinations for global capital.” Benefits for “gig” economy workers remain pending while employers operating “factories, mines or plantations” with up to 300 workers have been given unlimited power. Unilaterally and without government permission they can impose “lay-offs, retrenchment and closure.” It is a go-ahead for insecurity and anxiety. Such circumstances were deemed necessary for a healthy economy by giants of USA policy-making, Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers who has just slithered away after being fingered in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
A strike by unionized rubbish collectors in Birmingham. The UK’s second largest city has been in place for some months after the decision by the local authority to cut the wages of drivers and head loaders by one third. The local authority backed by the national government refuse to negotiate. Refuse collectors are a favourite target of those who think decent wages in the public sector are a threat to a healthy economy, as in the same UK in what was called “the winter of discontent” In 1979. Russell Vought, the present White House office of management and budget director (and chief author of the uber-capitalist Project 2025), said before the Trump administration took office, he wanted to put federal workers “in trauma” and for them to be viewed as “villains”, and has attempted to use the Federal government shutdown with unprecedented bullying of federal workers in the Fed govt. to further those efforts. The use of “scab” labour against the strikers, workers recruited by the job and company has not however gone to plan with some joining the Union pickets after complaining of “bullying” and “unsustainable workloads.”
In Russia, from which data miners have extracted some real information, it emerges that wages rise as a result of labour shortages despite reports of African workers being recruited. Wages have increased, workers grabbing an opportunity when they see one, but it has been at the cost of increasing instances of unpaid wages. Official statistics show a quadrupling of such cases, especially in the Construction sector.
In the USA, a strike by the Starbucks Workers United (who the company refuses to recognise as a union fighting for better wages and conditions) has spread to 30 more Starbucks outlets in 25 cities, adding to what is now 95 sites across 65 cities. The company continues to avoid negotiations at a time of a decline in coffee demand and a fall in its share price. Workers/baristas are expected to pay for this.
In China there are now 40 million short-term workers in the manufacturing sector, 31% of the total. There has been a steady increase in the numbers since 2008, the time of a Westen capitalist “crisis”, and better terms for workers with contracts. Recruitment has been through contract labour agencies or via open air labour markets. It is attractive to employers moving workers into slimy “flexibility”, in effect the “no risk” power of zero compensation and impunity for firing people. In addition to the notorious use of student labour this unofficial system depends on rural migrant labour.
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17/10/2025
Merchant seamen are being stranded off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf states as some owners and operators refuse to pay debts like port charges and wages. Last year’s record of 3000 sailors from India, the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia stranded on 312 ships is already being exceeded this year. The dangers of their work was shown by a fire this week on a Cameroon-flagged LNG (liquified natural gas) tanker MT Falcon. A specialised team of firefighting and medical personnel from the Indian Navy boarded the ship and recovered the mortal remains of two missing crew members “braving intense heat, damaged structures and toxic fumes,” according an Indian Navy statement.
Mass protests took place across Indonesia by workers mobilizing against an Omnibus Labour Law (2020) in the interests of capitalism. The rushed through the new law has revised more than 70 existing laws and
regulations undermining working hours and those on severance pay. 6000 were arrested. Though warmly greeted by “markets and the business community”, it was not enough to prevent a continued attack on the Indonesian currency by international capital.
There were demographic-caused labour shortages in the Russian Federation even before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Given that Ukrainian labour was crucial in the Russian construction sector and
since then the numbers taken by the Russian military in the interests of that invasion, the situation is
likely worse. An indication of this has been the recruitment drive by the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Africa and Latin America which faces many allegations of deceitful work-study promises. It’s notable that Special Economic Zones all over the world are liable to be super exploitative as there are no labour laws an no unions. Lately it has concentrated on Zimbabwe, South Africa an Burkina Faso. Elsewhere at the bottom-end of the AI labour process, Recruitment agencies for “data annotators” are proliferating. They are targeting Bogota, Colombia for this necessary low wage work.
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06/07/2025
In China protests have taken place by construction workers, teachers and factory workers. On May 19, workers of the No. 10 section of the Yangxin expressway civil engineering project under China Railway Seventh Group Co. Ltd. gathered in front of the Branch of the Management Department and demanded they be paid their back wages. Workers at the Qianlima Embroidery Factory in Haimen city in the coastal province of Jiangsu demonstrated outside their boss’s home for two consecutive days.
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06/06/2025
Casualties of shipworking sailors have increased dramatically in the last six years. They are usually the result of mechanical failure or damage. In 2024 with ageing ships the main location. Shipowners have been reluctant to retire aging vessels when freight rates have been so high. In 2024 they were at record levels.
GOOD NEWS is that 22 crew members were rescued uninjured from a 600-foot car carrier that caught fire 300 miles off the coast of Alaska. It was en route from China to Mexico with 3000 vehicles, 800 of which were electric cars.