Honduras: unions plan for general strike

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras: unions plan for general strike

Submitted by Weekly News Update on Tue, 08/24/2010 - 06:26. Thousands of Honduran workers marched in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to show solidarity with teachers who were in the 14th day of an open-ended strike. The protest--initiated by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), Honduras' main coalition of labor and grassroots organizations —was part of a strategy to build gradually for a national general strike against the government of President Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa, according to Juan Barahona, an FNRP leader.

Police agents dispersed the San Pedro Sula demonstration when the protesters blocked the highway leading to Puerto Cortés, the country's main commercial port.

The minimum wage, currently 5,500 lempiras a month (about $290), was supposed to be raised in April, but the business sector blocked the pay hike. The unions are calling for a 30% increase but have indicated that they are willing to negotiate with the government. The Aug. 18 demonstration was also intended to press the government to rehire workers at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) who were laid off earlier in the year by university rector Julieta Castellanos .

The teachers' strike, supported by four of the six unions in the Federation of Teachers Organizations of Honduras (FOMH), is over money the government owes the teachers' pension fund going back to 2007 under then-president José Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya Rosales. The government holds that it owes $94 million and offered to pay by the end of the year, while the unions claim the amount may be as high as 4.6 billion lempiras (about $242 million). The government has also rejected the teachers' demand for the firing of Education Minister Alejando Ventura.

More:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8978

[Downwinder]

1. FNRP reaches 944,330 signatures on the Declaration of Sovereignty

Tegucigalpa August 22, 2010. Today the National Popular Resistance Front reached 944,330 signatures, on the Declaration of Sovereignty demanding a Popular and Inclusive Constituent Assembly, in the last count carried out in the city of San Pedro Sula.

http://www.quotha.net/node/1137