Compass,the UK based global catering and facilities management company has launched a program of mass layoffs of workers in the Euro-Mediterranean area. In Italy the company plans to lay off almost 1000 of its 9000 employees. Company management explained the layoffs as necessary to retain forecasted profit margins!

The workers at the Holiday Inn LAX are blowing the whistle on their employer. Holiday Inn LAX employees reported that the hotel sometimes went without laundry detergent to wash sheets and towels. Workers would use only hot water when that happened. Workers also reported sometimes having no soap to wash cocktail glasses in the bar.

On October 23, the Swedish network Fair Travelling (Schyst Resande) released a report made in two of the most popular destinations for Swedish tourists: Turkey and Thailand.

Workers at the Legoland theme park in Günzburg in the south of Germany walked off the job on October 31 in protest against low wages and precarious working conditions.

The IUF-affiliated NGG has been calling on management to negotiate a collective agreement for the 1,000 workers at "Low-wageland Legoland" and called a strike on October 31 to coincide with Halloween celebrations and the close of the season in the theme park.

"As expected, it's workers who are paying the price of the Kraft Foods split", IUF affiliate PRO-GE said in response to Mondelez' announcement, on 30 October, that the Jacobs coffee roasting facility in Vienna (Austria) would be closed. "Mondelez is simply continuing what has long been common practice at Kraft Foods: abandoning sustainable corporate policy in favor of short-term stock market gains."

Eight days after launching collective action including rolling strikes at the Millennium Seoul Hilton, the union (a member of the IUF-affiliated KFSU) signed an agreement on October 23 which meets key demands. Signed just before the launch of a third strike, the agreement brings a 5% wage increase, improved benefits and allowances, and the recruitment of 13 permanent workers to replace those scheduled to retire this year.

The leadership of the IUF-affiliated Korean Women’s Trade Union (KWTU) together with two other unions in the National Council of Irregular Workers at Schools launched a hunger strike on October 24 to demand wage increases, the right to negotiate collective agreements and permanent jobs for precarious workers in schools.

TEAM, the union at the Hilton Conrad Maldives luxury resort whose management has challenged a court order to reinstate unjustly terminated workers, is stepping up union action in its fight for reinstatement and full back pay.

A joint letter (click here for Turkish and English version) sent by the Council of Global Unions and ETUC strongly condemns an article added at the last moment to the new trade union bill. The article states that in workplaces with less than 30 employees discrimination or dismissals arising from union activity will go unpunished.

UK singer/songwriter, Billy Bragg has always been a strong advocate of workers rights and while he was touring down under, he leant a voice to the campaigns of two IUF affiliates.

As the world plunges deeper into a food crisis, a small number of wealthy investors, investment funds and transnational companies are grabbing more of the world's farmlands, and the water that goes with it, leaving everyone else with less, or none at all.

Today the IUF-affiliated Milk Food Factory Workers Union stepped up its demand for improved working conditions at the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Horlicks factory in Nabha in Punjab state in northwest India. The union, representing 1,650 members, is demanding 105 new permanent positions be created to reduce excessive workloads in manufacturing and milk collection.

IUF affiliates in Australia and New Zealand are fighting a Kraft edict that no wedding rings shall be worn in their factories. While food workers are accustomed to removing jewellery for food safety and health and safety reasons, the sacred wedding ring is normally exempt. But Kraft policy states if the rings can’t be removed, they must be cut off.  Food companies normally deal with the issue through the requirement to wear gloves or an x-ray sensitive adhesive band.