Free Republic

The fast-food worker strikes are expanding to more U.S. cities and going global. Workers in up to 150 cities across the country are planning to strike on May 15, according to labor organizers. The movement is also headed overseas, with plans for workers to join protests in 33 countries. On Wednesday, the workers announced the protests outside a McDonald's in New York City, and delivered a letter that called on the fast food giant to raise wages and respect workers' rights worldwide. However, security guards didn't allow the workers to bring the letter inside the restaurant. So, they posted the...

My daughter just Honorably separated out of the Navy at the end of February after 8 1/2 years. Current TS and is looking for headhunters for Intel/Strike/TLAM. She's willing to contract to EU or ME. Does anyone have contacts for this type of position?

Last week’s three-day strike at Lufthansa drew attention to structural problems at a company that is critical to Germany’s globalized economy. The flag carrier is losing ground against competitors, but its pilots are remaining firm. […] (Vereinigung Cockpit)’s slogan for the strike, “Stop the profit greed” […] ended up backfiring on the pilots’ union. In the public and the press, on television and in many Internet forums, discussions of the pilots’ strike, instead of triggering debates over greedy fund managers, were focused on the pilots themselves. People across Germany were talking about whether the strike was justified or excessive. The...

Services needed for everybody from new immigrants to employers bringing in foreign workers will be brought to a halt. Foreign Ministry’s workers committee declared a full-fledged strike on Sunday, closing the ministry and all the country’s embassies and consulates around the world for the first time. The strike is the latest development in a nearly two-year-old work dispute that the workers declared for improved salaries and work conditions. Seven months of mediation efforts exploded on March 4 when the workers rejected a Finance Ministry proposal. The workers then resumed crippling labor measures that had been put on hold during the...

Back in 2013 it was Syria where the world was gearing for imminent military action after a relentless series of false flag provocations by the United States (intent on securing a Qatar gas pipeline to Europe) which in the last minute was deftly diffused by Vladimir Putin. In 2014, it was the Ukraine's turn, and after a prolonged campaign orchestrated by Victoria Nuland and the US State Department (again) which succeeded in the now traditional violent coup (see Egypt and Libya), once again saw Putin victorious, after yesterday's annexation of the all important Crimean peninsula, achieved without the firing of...

St. Paul public school teachers will decide this month whether to go on strike for the first time in more than six decades. After almost nine months of negotiations that have yet to yield a contract, union leadership Monday called for a strike authorization vote. The St. Paul Public Schools district has balked at St. Paul Federation of Teachers proposals to cap class sizes and set staffing levels for counselors and other support professionals in a two-year contract. The two sides have also not agreed on a compensation package. The union's 3,200 members will weigh in on a possible walkout...

A video uploaded to Youtube by an Arab-language user called GazaTube claims to show security camera footage documenting the IAF strike that targeted an Islamic Jihad terrorist in Gaza earlier Sunday. The video appears to show a relatively small explosion, possibly by a missile that had pinpointed its target. A bus that had been driving nearby was also damaged – and, apparently, a donkey was badly hurt as well. The terrorist has been identified as Ahmed Sa’ad, who was seriously injured and taken to a hospital. Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq8j9_wzErA Sa'ad had been riding a motorbike when he was hit by a...

Midway through Barack Obama’s first term as president, U.S. officials grew alarmed that Israel might launch a unilateral air strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Iran had snubbed Obama’s outreach after the 2008 election, and rejected an October 2009 international proposal to ship most of its enriched uranium out of the country—stirring pessimism about prospects for a future breakthrough. “Militarily, I thought we needed to prepare for a possible Israeli attack and Iranian retaliation,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates writes in his new memoir, Duty. At a January 2010 Oval Office meeting, Gates told Obama “he needed to consider the ramifications...

Last night members from Stop & Shop, King Kullen, Pathmark, Fairway, D'Agostino, Key Food and Shop Rite came together to support Stop & Shop workers. Together as a union we made over 1,000 picket signs in preparation for a potential strike at Stop & Shop (Thank you to all who came and for your support!). Right now our union is still negotiating with the company. A Trustee meeting scheduled for all day tomorrow to discuss Pension & Welfare. However, we are continuing to prepare for a strike. Tomorrow you will receive more information in your store. Today our Stop &...

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Missiles fired by a U.S. drone slammed into a convoy of vehicles traveling to a wedding party in central Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 13 people, Yemeni security officials said. The officials said the attack took place in the city of Radda, the capital of Bayda province, and left charred bodies and burnt out cars on the road. The city, a stronghold of al-Qaida militants, witnessed deadly clashes early last year between armed tribesmen backed by the military and al-Qaida gunmen in an attempt to drive them out of the city. There were no immediate...

Dozens of people gathered outside Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's locations Downtown on Thursday morning to protest low wages as part of a national campaign energizing fast-food workers. Carrying placards and shouting slogans such as “No justice, no doughnuts,” about 75 people rallied in front of the Dunkin Donuts in Market Square and the nearby McDonald's on Stanwix Street. The actions are part of push by labor unions, worker advocacy groups and Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25. President Obama says he would back a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, and on Wednesday addressed income equality in...

Backers of the movement for higher pay point to studies saying that the average age of fast-food workers is 29 and that more than one-fourth are parents raising children. Simon Rojas, who earns $8.07 an hour working at a McDonald’s in South Central Los Angeles, said he would join Thursday’s one-day strike. “It’s very difficult to live off $8.07 an hour,” said Mr. Rojas, 23, noting that he is often assigned just 20 or 25 hours of work a week. “I have to live with my parents. I would like to be able to afford a car and an apartment.”...

Union Verdi is preparing more strikes to step up pressure on Amazon in Germany, its biggest market outside the United States, in a dispute over pay and conditions, German media reported. Workers at Amazon centers in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig will walk out for at least one day on Monday, Heiner Reimann of Verdi told daily Stuttgarter Nachrichten. The union has organized several short strikes this year in a bid to force the world's biggest Internet retailer to accept a collective agreement on employment conditions similar to deals for the mail order and retail sector, which are more generous than...

Survey indicates backing drops even further if US opposed to move; second poll reveals majority of Americans favor deal with Tehran Slightly fewer than half of Israelis back the use of a military option against Iran’s nuclear program, with the number dropping even further should the US not lend support for such an action, a poll released Thursday night showed. At the same time, a separate poll among US citizens showed growing support for a diplomatic deal with Tehran. The Israeli poll, commissioned by Channel 2 political anchor Nissim Mishal, showed 49.1 percent of Israelis backing a last-resort military strike...

The trouble with proclaiming 'victory' over the crisis in Spain (read the whole of Europe) and the ECB enabling governments profligacy with the ghost of OMT future is that it merely emboldens. As Al Jazeera reports, Madrid's garbage collectors have been on strike since November 5 to protest layoffs and pay cuts. With garbage piling up on the streets of Madrid, the mayor issued private trash-collecting companies an ultimatum on Wednesday: end the street cleaners' strike or lose their contracts. More than 30,000 residents have signed a petition to the defense minister asking for the streets to be cleaned....

Israel does not have much time to make a “fateful decision” about whether to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Sunday in a radio interview. “Israel, I think, now faces the fateful decision whether it will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons, thus constituting a true existential threat to Israel,” he said. “Or whether they will strike as the Israelis have done twice before against nuclear programs in the hands of hostile states,” Bolton told WABC Radio’s Aaron Klein. “I don’t think Israel has much time,” Bolton continued. “Frankly, they should have done this years ago...

f you haven't done your grocery shopping yet, now might be the time to stock up. On Monday at roughly 7:30 p.m., workers of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 authorized a strike of Stop & Shop supermarket, which employs 5,500 workers represented by the union. The strike would shut down stores on Long Island, New York City, Westchester, Putnam, and Duchess counties. ... At issue is the negotiation over what health benefits will look like with the arrival of the Affordable Care Act, legislation that was sold to some lawmakers as making it easier for some...

(CNN) -- Israeli warplanes struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia on Thursday, an Obama administration official told CNN. An explosion at a missile storage site in the area was widely reported in the Israeli press, but an attack has not been confirmed by the Israeli government. The target, according to the Obama administration official, was missiles and related equipment the Israelis felt might be transferred to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. The official declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. When asked for comment, an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman told...

An air strike in southern Somalia has killed two senior commanders of the militant Islamist group, al-Shabab, residents have told the BBC. The strike destroyed the vehicle the militants were travelling in between the towns of Jilib and Barawe, seen as a major base of al-Shabab, they said. The US launched a failed raid in Barawe earlier this month to capture an al-Shabab commander. Al-Shabab is the main al-Qaeda-linked group in East Africa. A Kenyan military source told the BBC their troops had raided Jilib, and that there might have been some casualties. However, correspondents say it is unlikely that...

At least one BART union agreed Saturday to put the transit agency's contract proposal to a vote, but commuters looking for a quick end to the 2-day-old strike should hold off on the celebrations. Speaking from the entrance of the shuttered Pittsburg BART Station, Antonette Bryant, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, said she expects that vote to result in a "resounding no." ... A spokeswoman from Service Employees International Union Local 1021, BART's largest union, declined to say whether that union also would allow a vote on the contract. ... With no negotiations scheduled, both sides said Saturday...