Couple this with NSA and Obama's plummeting approval ratings, and we have a major shift in the collective attitude toward the status quo underway.
Americans' confidence in newspapers fell slightly to 23% this year, from 25% in 2012 and 28% in 2011. The percentage of Americans saying they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers has been generally trending downward since 1979, when it reached a high of 51%.
Newspapers rank near the bottom on a list of 16 societal institutions Gallup measured in a June 1-4 survey. Television news is tied with newspapers on the list, with 23% of Americans also expressing confidence in it. That is up slightly from the all-time low of 21% found last year. The only institutions television news and newspapers beat out this year are big business, organized labor, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), and Congress.
Americans' confidence in television news was highest, at 46%, in 1993, when Gallup first asked about it. The question does not indicate the specific type of television news, meaning respondents could be thinking about anything ranging from cable news channels to local news when answering the survey. Read more >>
As the city heads into a week of expected high temperatures that could strain the electricity grid, managers at the Consolidated Edison Company began settling into new roles on Sunday, doing the jobs of more than 8,000 unionized workers who were sent home after an early morning breakdown in contract negotiations prompted the company’s first labor lockout in decades.
The workers, members of the utility’s largest union, were locked out after their contract expired at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, and talks broke down less than two hours later. About 5,000 managers, including some former union members, will step in to keep the utility running, Con Ed said. But union leaders warned that those managers, who they said included retired supervisors called back to work, might not have the numbers or the training to keep up if the hot weather and the increased demand for air-conditioning created major power failures.
“This was an irresponsible move on Con Ed’s part,” said Harry Farrell, the president of the union, Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America. “What they said last night to the people of New York was, ‘Drop dead.’ ” Asked if he believed the management stand-ins could handle a crisis, he said, “They’re asking retired supervisors to climb poles and work in manholes and stuff — I just don’t see it happening.” Read more >>
In this historic stronghold of the American labor movement, the phrase “right to work” is seen by many as fighting words.
But with a new GOP-controlled state Legislature and a Republican governor in place in Lansing, a move is afoot to make Michigan the 23rd state in the nation to adopt legislation that would prohibit unions and employers from regulating collection of union dues or requiring employees to join a union if their workplace is organized.
“We’ve got growing and substantial support in the Legislature for pursuing Michigan becoming a right-to-work state, but this is a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s all about making sure we are removing all obstacles to jobs,” said state Rep. Mike Shirkey, Clarklake Republican.
“Everyone acknowledges that overcoming the 75-plus-year history of legacy unions here is not something you do overnight. But some of the polls statewide indicate the public is moving toward a direction of supporting workers having the choice,” he said. “I’m not anti-union. I call it labor freedom, where unions are as free to make their case as workers are to make their choice.” More...
ROME – Italians marched through cities and towns in a general strike protesting an austerity budget they say bleeds workers but spares the rich.
The left-leaning CGIL union called the strike in an effort to force prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government to redraft a €25 billion austerity package he says is an essential part of European efforts to save the currency.
The website of the CGIL, Italy’s largest union, said more than one million people took part in various demonstrations in large and small cities around the country.
About 100,000 people, according to union estimates, demonstrated in the central city of Bologna, capital of a traditionally leftist area with a strong labour movement.
In Rome, a long line of protesters blowing whistles and waving red CGIL flags snaked past the Colosseum. Organisers put the turnout at 40,000 people.
In Milan, the CGIL said 80,000 attended a rally, but police estimated the figure at 35,000.
Many of Friday’s marchers also bore placards against car maker Fiat, which is wrangling with unions over plans to improve labour productivity at a plant in southern Italy.
“We say No to this budget. It is wrong, unjust, it stunts growth, it does not kick-start production, it doesn’t touch the rich and it punishes workers,” said union leader Fulvio Mammoni to a crowd of tens of thousands in Naples.
After months of telling Italians they were immune to a Greek-style debt crisis, Mr Berlusconi’s cabinet in May approved an austerity plan, including cuts to funding for municipalities and freezing of public sector salaries.
The government said a random poll of 30 per cent of state workers showed that fewer than 3 per cent of them had heeded the strike call as of early yesterday afternoon.
Support for the stoppage seemed mixed in some areas, despite the union’s judgment that adherence was “massive”. Several bus and metro services in Rome still ran.
The strike was a test of strength for Mr Berlusconi, whose poll ratings have sunk to new lows as unemployment has risen and the euro zone’s third largest economy has struggled to emerge from its worst post-second World War recession.
The strike has split Italy’s trade union movement, which is divided along political lines. The other two main unions have asked their members to stay on the job.
nytimes.com KEITH BRADSHER A Labor Movement Stirs in China Striking workers at a Honda auto parts plant here are demanding the right to form their own labor union, something officially forbidden in China, and held a protest march Friday morning.
Meanwhile, other scattered strikes have begun to ripple into Chinese provinces previously untouched by the labor unrest.
A near doubling of wages is the primary goal of the approximately 1,700 Honda workers on strike here in this southeastern China city, at the third Honda auto parts factory to face a work stoppage in the last two weeks.
A chanting but nonviolent crowd of workers gathered outside the factory gates on Friday morning and held a short protest march before dissolving into a large group of milling young workers who filled the two-lane road for more than a block outside the factory.
They were met by black-clad police with helmets, face masks and small round riot shields. But the workers showed no signs of being intimidated. The police marched off at midmorning, leaving the workers to block the road into the small industrial park next to a eucalyptus-lined muddy canal that runs past the factory.
The workers dispersed about an hour after the police left and remained on strike.
Management helped defuse the march by distributing a flier that essentially offered 50 renminbi, or about $7.30, for each of the eight days that the factory was closed beginning in late May as part of a nationwide shutdown of Honda manufacturing set off by a transmission factory strike. Management previously wanted to treat the shutdown as unpaid leave, workers said.
Only 50 or so striking workers showed up outside the factory after lunch on Friday. Managers distributed a new flier urging them to return to work in the afternoon and saying that all would be forgiven if they did.
But the flier contained no new offer on wages, and there was no sign that any workers were going back into the factory. One worker said that the newly chosen factory council was not holding any negotiations because it could be physically dangerous for all of the representatives to gather in one place with management and the authorities.
The worker, an activist in the labor unrest here, said that the strikers were waiting for a genuinely new offer from management before holding any more talks.
This latest strike, which started Wednesday morning, has taken on political dimensions.
The strikers here have developed a sophisticated, democratic organization, in effect electing shop stewards to represent them in collective bargaining with management. They are also demanding the right to form a trade union separate from the government-controlled national federation of trade unions, which has long focused on maintaining labor peace for foreign investors.
“The trade union is not representing our views; we want our own union that will represent us,” said a striking worker, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation by government authorities or the company.
Geoffrey Crothall, the spokesman for China Labour Bulletin, a labor advocacy group based in Hong Kong that seeks independent labor unions and collective bargaining in mainland China, expressed surprise when told how the Honda workers here in Zhongshan had organized themselves. “It does reflect a new level of organization and sophistication” in Chinese labor relations, he said.
A Honda spokesman declined to comment on the details of the strike. The Chinese government has been relatively lenient in allowing coverage of the labor unrest because Honda is a Japanese company, and some anti-Japanese sentiment lingers in China as a legacy of World War II.
Despite unusual forbearance in allowing the various strikes so far, the Chinese government has shown no interest in tolerating unions with full legal independence from the national union.
Dozens of workers gathered in clumps shortly before sunset on Thursday in front of the sprawling parts factory and outspokenly criticized local authorities for seeming to side with the company.
The workers said that large numbers of police officers had been positioned in the factory on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to intimidate them. The two other Honda parts factories shut down by walkouts in recent weeks have reopened after workers were promised large pay increases.
The Chinese government has not allowed unions with full legal independence from the national, state-controlled union. But the government has occasionally finessed the issue by letting workers choose their factories’ representatives of the national union, or by allowing the creation of “employee welfare committees” in parallel with the official local units, said Mary E. Gallagher, a China labor specialist at the University of Michigan.
But these exceptions have tended to be in less prominent industries like shoe and garment manufacturing, and not in bastions of heavy industry like automaking. More...
By Agence France-Presse CREPY-EN-VALOIS, France -- Workers at a French car accessories plant north of Paris threatened Friday to blow up their factory unless they were given better layoff compensation.
Employees at the Sodimatex plant placed petrol bombs near a large gas tank and were threatening to set them on fire.
"The plant is going to go up in smoke, if that's what they want," said one worker.
Managers sat down with union leaders and labour mediators at the town hall in Crepy-en-Valois in a bid to defuse tensions at the plant, where 92 jobs will be shed.
"The workers have high expectations about this meeting. There has to be a concrete result or else anything could happen. They are very determined," said Eric Lemoine, a union activist.
"Even if we tell them not to do it, some of them might not listen," said another union leader, Gerard Decleir.
Staff set fire to pieces of plastic and rolls of carpet at the factory, sending billowing black smoke into the sky as police deployed outside the plant's gates.
Industry Minister Christian Estrosi condemned the workers' action as "unacceptable" and called on them to settle the row with management through talks.
Workers are demanding compensation of 21,000 euros (28,000 dollars) each, much more than the 15,000 euros on offer from the owners. France has its highest unemployment rate in a decade, at 10 percent, with the car industry among the hardest-hit by the global slowdown.
The sector employs 10 percent of the total French workforce.
Last year, French workers hit by a wave of layoffs carried out a series of "bossnappings" to press demands for better redundancy packages, but the radical action has subsided over past months.
President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out against the detentions, saying they were illegal, and vowed to take action.
In his appeal to the workers, the industry minister said "only dialogue can lead to results for the workers facing a painful situation with the closure of their plant. Violence and threats will only lead to a dead-end."
Sodimatex, which produces car carpets, announced last April that it planned to shut down its plant in Crepy-en-Valois and began talks on compensation. But months of negotiations hit an impasse and workers on Thursday decided to occupy the plant after police used tear gas to disperse a protest they were holding near the factory.
About 40 workers spent the night at the plant, sleeping on the factory's just-produced carpets.
Union activists contend they are seeking the same package as Sodimatex employees from another plant who were given 21,000 euros each when their factory was shut down in 2006.
reuters.com Police clashed with stone-throwing youths in Athens on Thursday as tens of thousands of strikers protested against draconian cutbacks aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis shaking the euro zone.
World
In one central square hundreds of protesters hurled sticks and stones at riot police, who responded by baton-charging the crowd and firing several rounds of teargas.
The clashes came after more than 20,000 protesters marched through Athens beating drums and chanting slogans such as "Plutocrats must pay for the crisis" to mark the second general strike in two weeks.
Groups of anarchists threw petrol bombs, smashed shop windows, damaged cars, set garbage containers on fire and hurled lumps of marble torn from steps of the Bank of Greece.
Two protesters and 13 police officers were slightly wounded and 16 protesters detained, police said. But the level of violence was much lower than in 2008 riots that paralyzed Athens for weeks after the police killing of a teenager.
"Everybody is watching Greece to see the depth, intensity and sustainability of protests," said Theodore Couloumbis, deputy head of the ELIAMEP think-tank and a professor of international relations at the University of Athens.
"These protests are more than likely similar to the farmers' blockades earlier this year, which ran out of steam after a while," he said.
Participation in the Athens marches was slightly higher than in the previous nationwide strike on February 24 but not huge by Greek standards and much smaller than a 100,000-strong march against similar measures in the Irish capital last year.
"People understand we are going through difficult times," a senior government official said. By late afternoon, the streets had largely returned to normal.
EU politicians and credit rating agencies have broadly welcomed Greece's latest budget measures but have said quick and smooth delivery will be key to re-establishing the country's credibility diplomatically and as a borrower.
The cost of insuring Greek debt against default rose, as did the premium investors charge to hold Greek bonds rather than German benchmarks, as EU policymakers injected a dose of cold reality into talk of creating a European monetary fund.
Thursday's strikes were organized by labor unions representing half of the country's 5 million strong workforce, protesting cuts in civil servants' income, tax hikes, a pension freeze and plans to raise the retirement age.
The walkouts grounded flights, docked ships, shut schools and hospitals and halted public transport. Many archaeological sites and museums were closed to visitors and the publication of GDP and unemployment data was postponed.
WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?
There was no news on television and radio as journalists were on strike. Bank employees, firefighters, tax collectors and even some police officers were also among those marching. Unions are preparing further action in April and May.
Most Greeks believe that, despite the protests, the cash-strapped socialist government will press ahead with a budget plan agreed last week after months of wrangling with the EU and intense pressure from financial markets.
But the 4.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) package of cutbacks is viewed by many as hitting the wrong people in a country with widespread corruption and tax evasion.
"The measures are unfair ... we cannot make it, we have children, families. We need to find the money to support them," said 60-year old health sector worker Odysseas Panagopoulos. "Banks and rich people should pay for this crisis."
Athens' streets echoed with loud-speakers blaring slogans calling for the rich to pay for the debt crisis. "No sacrifice for the rich!" protesters chanted holding banners reading: "Where did the money go?."
The general strike took place as EU policymakers are discussing ways to help the euro zone weakling.
Officials and unions gave widely diverging estimates of participation in the strikes. Interior ministry officials said about 15 percent of civil servants had walked out, while their union put the level at over 65 percent.
Last week's package, aimed at reassuring markets that Athens can handle a 300 billion euro debt mountain, came just 5 months after the socialists won an election on a promise to help the poor deal with Greece's first recession in 16 years.
"This government deceived us," said Zaharoula Toulia, a 57-year-old pensioner who lives on 800 euros a month and voted for the socialists. "They said there was money. Where is it?"
France Telecom chief executive Didier Lombard holds a press conference
A 24th France Telecom employee has killed himself in what the company says is a "suicide spiral". The 51-year-old father-of-two hurled himself to his death from a bridge onto a busy road in the Haute-Savoie region of the country. In a letter to his wife, he blamed the unbearable "atmosphere" at his workplace.
France Telecom has been dogged by an series of suicides in the last 18 months. The deaths include a woman who jumped from her office window in the summer, while another man survived stabbing himself in the stomach during a work meeting. Unions say a drive to restructure the company in the face of the global recession is behind the deaths.
A French Telecom worker explains why he stabbed himself.
The company laid off 22,000 workers between 2006 and 2008 while staff say changing working practices and poor management have placed intolerable pressure on workers. Labour minister Xavier Darcos this month ordered an official to monitor France Telecom's health and safety meetings.
The company has also been told to delay any relocation plans until October 31. France Telecom employs around 100,000 people in France and insists the number of suicides is in line with the national average. It said some of the deaths were down to copycat behaviour. But one union official said workers had been treated like "sausage meat".
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