At a January 7 Meat Workers Union meeting, workers rejected a company demand to increase the kill from 250 to 275 beef per day with no increase in staffing or hours. Affco was projecting an eventual increase to 300. The workers did agree to open negotiations with the company on increasing the daily kill. As part of this, Affco would also have to guarantee a minimum 40-week season for the first shift.

Tony, a worker attending the union meeting, told the Militant, “The ink had barely dried on our contract and the company came back to us demanding concessions. If we let them get away with it, they will use it against workers at the other Affco plants too, and it won’t stop here. They will be back next season asking for more. We are people, not machines, but they don’t care if we break down.”

—Annalucia Vermunt  
 
Garment workers in Saipan strike
to protest pending plant closure
Garment workers in Saipan, Northern Mariana Island, a U.S. colony in the Pacific, conducted a hunger strike and then a sit-down strike in mid-December to protest plans to close Concorde Garment Manufacturing in February. Most of the workers, newly recruited from China, "were refusing to work unless they are reimbursed recruitment fees and tax rebates are settled," reported the online garment and textile industry publication fibre2fashion.com. Concorde, the largest garment plant in Saipan, will be the 12th factory to close there since January 2005, when quotas on textile shipments to the United States were ended.

—Brian Williams  
 
Postal workers in Portugal
conduct nationwide strike
Postal workers in Portugal conducted a nationwide strike December 27, followed by a two-day walkout in sorting and distribution centers. The strikers demanded better working conditions and an end to a government plan to subcontract out jobs, potentially resulting in layoffs of hundreds of workers, according to the Sindicato Nacional dos Trabalhadores dos Correios e Telecomunicações, which represents many of the workers. The Portuguese postal company, CTT, employs 13,000 people. More than 50 percent of postal workers in the north and 40 percent in the south joined the walkout, reported the Portugal Resident. "When some workers gathered in a picket line to try and stop trucks from private mail handling companies from leaving the warehouses," reported the International Herald Tribune, the police intervened against the unionists.

—Brian Williams  
 
 
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