While 4 convicted leaders of the independent Haft Tapeh sugarworkers union in Iran have now been freed, President Ali Nejati remains in prison, where he could spend two years or more on charges of 'endangering national security'.

Blackstone Chairman Stephen Schwarzman has warned Australia of a foreign investment "chill" following that country's efforts to collect taxes on a windfall deal from private equity giant TPG.

TEKEL - former state-owned tobacco company - workers from all over Turkey converged on Ankara on 15 December 2009 to protest against the government's snap decision to close their workplaces.

The German public prosecutor and tax authorities are examining serious allegations concerning world's largest pork exporter Danish Crown in Germany.
In December 2009, a large number of subcontracted Romanian workers received only partial or no pay at all for their work at the slaughterhouse.

FLAI-CGIL and UILA-UIL meat workers walked out on January 29 for 8 hours for the first in a series of strikes at Inalca-JBS Castelvetro (Modena) slaughterhouse in Italy.

On January 7 a group of migrant - mostly African - farmworkers rioted in the Southern Italian (Calabria) town of Rosarno. They clashed with the police and local inhabitants, some of whom fought back with iron bars.

As the strike by over a thousand FAWU members at ABI in South Africa enters its sixth week, the company has begun responding with false allegations and deliberate misinformation to the messages sent to the company by trade unionists around the world calling on it to enter into good faith negotiations with the union.

As Sodexo shareholders gathered for their annual meeting this week in Paris, a delegation of the company’s employees and their unions from France, the US, and the UK called for a global guarantee from Sodexo to improve pay and working conditions and guarantee the fundamental rights of Sodexo workers.