Jaringan Rakyat Tertindas - JERIT

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Workers at tea warehouses in and around the Kenyan port city of Mombasa staged a strike between Feb. 8 and Feb. 12 in a dispute over wages, affecting shipments and destabilizing prices.

The issue was resolved and the laborers resumed work this week, Tom Muchura, director of Africa Tea Brokers Ltd., said in a phone interview today from the city.

“They are all back at work,” Muchura said.The strike started after some workers were paid below the minimum recommended wage, George Nesbitt, director of Tea Warehouses Ltd., said by phone from Mombasa today. Management responded with a salary increase, he said. “All of the companies were affected because there was picketing even at the places where they were paying the agreed rate,” he said.

Source: BERNAMA

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 (Bernama) -- The National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) on Wednesday called on the government to amend the Employment Act 1955 to increase the maternity leave for private sector workers from 60 days to 90 days to keep abreast with the practice in other Asean countries.

Its General Secretary, J. Solomon, said most Asean countries had adopted the revised International Labour Organisation's Convention 183 on Maternity Protection which not only provided longer leave but also had provisions for breastfeeding and childcare protection.

He told Bernama that Singapore provided 112 days of maternity leave while Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines provided 90 days.

He said in Cambodia, it was mandatory for companies with more than 100 women workers to provide breastfeeding room and childcare centre. Similar facilities were also provided for mothers in Indonesia.

He hoped that Malaysia would emulate its Asean partners and provide better facilities for its 5.1 million women workers who had to juggle between full-time and demanding jobs, and as homemakers with full responsibility for their children's health, growth and development.

Solomon said NUBE would soon submit a memorandum on this issue to the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development.

ATHENS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Greek customs officials began a three-day strike on Tuesday to protest against cuts in their income, in a further sign of discontent among public workers with an EU-backed deficit-cutting plan.

Some Finance Ministry employees, including accountants and national statistics service staff, also walked off the job on Tuesday to protest against wage freezes and allowances cuts. Tax officials will stage a 24-hour walkout on Wednesday.

A lack of popular support for protests so far has offered hope Athens can tackle its fiscal crisis but these protests are some in a series of walkouts that will further test this month the government's resolve to implement its deficit-cutting plan.

"The government measures will further cut our salaries, we have already lost 10 percent of our income in the past two years due to wages freezes," said Apostolos Papantonis, treasurer at Greece's customs employees federation.

Customs offices around the country shut down on Tuesday for three days. If the strike lasts longer, it could lead to container pile-ups at ports and border crossings and affect petrol distribution across the country.

Papantonis said the union would decide this week whether to stage more strikes.Greece's powerful ADEDY public sector union, which held a 24-hour strike last week will join another one-day stoppage by the private sector union GSEE on Feb. 24.The two unions, which together group half of Greece's 5 million-strong workforce, say the poorest will suffer from a government package designed to bring down the budget deficit from 12.7 percent of GDP last year to under 3 percent in 2012.

Greece shocked markets when the newly elected socialists revealed in October the 2009 budget deficit would be three times higher than original estimates. Opinion polls show most of Greece's 11 million population back the government.