The Guardian 6 December, 2006
Global briefs
INDIA: The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which has close ties with the
Communist Party of India-Marxist, has launched the West Bengal Information Technology Services
Association (WBITSA) with the aim of organising information technology (IT) workers in a state
governed by the CPI-M for 30 years. The union's political backing worries employers, as does the
prospect of a revival there of once prominent labour militancy. Employers are particularly
concerned about possible job actions that might disrupt their call-centre services for US clients.
The CPI-M-led state government envisions the IT sector growing from 44,000 workers to 200,000
by 2010. A test of the new union's influence will come on December 14, when it participates in a
national general strike called by CITU.
SWEDEN: Trade unions are poised to challenge Sweden's centre-right government that
took over in September after 12 years of social-democratic rule. The government of Prime Minister
Fredrik Reinfeldt has proposed major cuts in worker benefits. Union demonstrations are on tap
nationwide for December. A banker told the Financial Times of London that the proposed changes
"will tend to weaken the trade union movement in the long term". A spokesperson for the Swedish
labour federation that represents 1.83 million workers said that the proposed changes would
reduce unemployment benefits from 80 percent of salary to 65 percent, causing particular hardship
for women. She stressed that the upcoming demonstrations, only the third nationwide mobilisation
in 10 years, will not constitute a strike. Instead, she said, "We will gather and protest."
ZAMBIA: Public services in copper-rich Zambia have waned following the privatisation of
state-owned resources in the 1990s, while world copper prices have been rising. Consequently
revenue authorities are proposing an increase in mining companies' royalty payments to the
government from 0.6 percent of annual earnings to around three percent, a figure more in line with
royalty payments worldwide. Unfortunately, under World Bank pressure, the privatisation deals
were consummated hurriedly, and the original agreements lack an expiry date. As a result, the
mining companies are expected to launch a legal challenge to the rate hike.
BRITAIN: Marking the fifth anniversary of the Doha agreements aimed at protecting the
public's health against rigid application of intellectual property rules, Oxfam International released a
report claiming that patents hurt the poor. Four million people have contracted AIDS since 2001,
the non-profit aid and development group said, but monopolies control 74 percent of the anti-AIDS
drugs and 77 percent of infected Africans go untreated. The United States comes under special
criticism for requiring poor countries signing new trade agreements to abide by patent restrictions.
Colombia, for example, will be upping pharmaceutical payments by US$940 million annually and
the cost of medicines in Peru will increase 100 percent over 10 years.