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The jobless rate for youth under the age of 30 is 25 percent. The First Employment Contract (CPE) allows bosses to fire workers under the age of 26 for any reason during their first two years on the job.
“Job opportunities are scarce, because countries with a lower standard of living than France are attracting all the jobs,” Feliciene Morlet, a 22-year-old sociology student in Paris, told the press. “And the only solution that de Villepin offers is a law that makes it easier to fire us so even if we get a job it isn’t really a job.”
—Arrin Hawkins
Locked-out paper workers rally
in Nova Scotia, Canada
PORT HAWKESBURY, Nova Scotia—Two thousand locked-out workers at Stora Enso—one of the largest paper companies in the world—and other unionists marched through the streets of this Cape Breton town of 4,000 people on March 18. A big majority of the 540 locked-out members of Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) Local 972 joined the spirited march and rally. One young woman made her own colorful sign decorated with balloons that read: “Port Hawkesbury is and will remain a union town.” Workers on the picket line said that contracting out is the key issue in dispute.
“This strike has been really great for us. It was like we were two different companies before the strike—operations and maintenance. We never knew what each other’s problems were. Now we’re all together,” said Peter MacIntyre, with 38 years in the plant.
—Beverly Bernardo
New Zealand: Fast food workers
march for pay raise
AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Chanting “Two, four, six, eight, super size my pay rate,” 300 fast food restaurant workers marched here March 18. The action was part of the SuperSizeMyPay .Com campaign, organized by the Unite union around demands to increase the minimum wage to NZ$12 an hour (US$7.30), abolish youth rates, and set regular hours of work. Two days later a group called Radical Youth organized an action with Unite in which 500 high school students left their classrooms to march in central Auckland for the pay raise campaign.
Unite members have staged a series of two-hour walkouts at KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and McDonalds outlets in Auckland and Wellington. Restaurant Brands, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks brands in New Zealand, has proposed phasing out youth rates in its latest contract offer to the union.
—Terry Coggan
Related articles:
Change to Win Federation holds convention
General Motors announces sweeping job cuts
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