PARIS - Hundreds of thousands of people massed in France on Monday to vent their anger against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform, with unions vowing not to stop fighting even after the changes were signed into law.
Unions had been hoping for a vast turnout of about one million people across France for the May 1 protests to further rattle Macron, who has been greeted by pot-bashing and jeers as he toured the country seeking to defend the reforms and relaunch his second mandate.
Macron signed a law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 last month , despite months of strikes against the bill.
The main march in Paris kicked off along the traditional protest route of Place de la Republique to Place de la Nation, with a heavy downpour suddenly beginning at the very moment it started.
Police had been given a last-minute go-ahead to use drones as a security measure after a Paris court rejected a petition from rights groups for them not to be used.
Police used tear gas in Toulouse in southern France as tensions erupted during the demonstrations, while a car was set on fire in the south-eastern city of Lyon.
In the western city of Nantes, police also fired tear gas after protesters hurled projectiles, AFP correspondents said.
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Canada
A massive strike by Canadian civil servants was set to largely end on Monday after the government reached a deal to raise the wages of more than 120 000 workers, AFP reported, quoting the union representing them.
A third of the country's public workers – about 155 000 people – began striking on April 19, hitting picket lines at hundreds of locations around the country with demands for cost-of-living raises and telework flexibility.
The labour action has caused major delays in public services, such as processing passport and immigration applications.
"After nearly two years of bargaining leading to one of the largest strikes in Canadian history, PSAC has reached tentative agreements for the more than 120,000 Treasury Board workers who deliver critical services to Canadians," said the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
It said it had won a 12.6% wage increase over the four-year contract period (2021-2024), below its desired 13.5% raise but above the 9% bump proposed by the government.
On the sticking point of teleworking, which many employees had grown accustomed to during the Covid-19 pandemic, PSAC said it had secured "significant new protections."
It said that new "language in a letter of agreement" would require managers to assess remote work requests on an individual basis and not by group.
The agreement however does not cover the 35 000 members of Canada's tax agency, who will continue to strike.
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Italy
Italy's right-wing government on Monday rolled back anti-poverty subsidies introduced four years ago that helped some four million people last year, as critics denounced a "provocation" on the international May Day labour holiday, AFP reported.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who leads the country's most far-right coalition since World War II, said the "citizens' income" benefits would be replaced by a more limited "inclusion cheque" for qualifying households.
The government says it costs too much, at around eight billion euros last year, and discourages able-bodied people, especially youths, from looking for jobs.
The new inclusion cheques, set to begin in January 2024, will cost around 5.4 billion euros annually, and be available only to households with minors, seniors 60 or older, or handicapped people.
Since taking office last September, Meloni has pushed corporate tax cuts while also promising to restore Italy's economic credibility by cutting debt incurred most recently during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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United Kingdom
Nurses in England walked out again on Monday, with some critical services due to be hit for the first time.
The industrial action is the latest stoppage in an increasingly bitter dispute with the government over pay and conditions.
The 28-hour strike, which started on Sunday, comes after members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) earlier this month voted to reject a 5% government pay increase offer.
The walkout is one of many across the private and public sector over the past year as workers have grappled with double-digit inflation.
All hospitals have been guaranteed a minimum level of cover for intensive care and trauma.
But the latest strike is the first time areas such as intensive care, chemotherapy and dialysis have been hit, although some exemptions had been agreed.
In previous walkouts, such services had been completely excluded from strike action.
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The Netherlands
Employees of the largest labour union in the Netherlands, FNV, on Monday said they will go on strike to force the union itself to pay them higher wages.
The union workers said their employer had missed a May 1, International Workers' Day, ultimatum to increase its wage offer for the coming years.
They said this would result in a general strike by FNV staff on Tuesday, with more strike action to follow if demands are not met.
"It is painful that we have to go on strike," FNV employee representative Judith Westhoek said. "But FNV staff also has the right to an honest wage deal that is appropriate for these times."
The FNV had offered its employees a wage increase of 3 to 7% this year, followed by a 5% bump next year and automatic price compensation with a maximum of 5% from 2025 on.
Employees demand full annual compensation for inflation, which jumped to 10% in the Netherlands last year and is expected to be around 3% this year and next.
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Iran
Four thousand Iranian petrochemical workers on strike over pay and conditions in an energy-producing region of the country's south will be sacked and replaced, AFP reported quoting the state media.
The employees in Bushehr province have demanded salary increases and improved conditions for accommodation and transport, an official in charge of the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector in the region was quoted as saying onFriday by state news agency IRNA.
"In eight petrochemical projects of this region, a number of seasonal workers went on strike due to livelihood problems, and after the end of the legal deadline, 4,000 of them will be replaced by new workers," Sekhavat Assadi, CEO of the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone said.
PSEEZ extracts oil and gas from the offshore South Pars field in the Gulf, the world's largest known gas reserve which Iran shares with Qatar. About 40 000 people work at South Pars.
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It's shaping up to be the season of the worker at annual company meetings, according to Bloomberg.
From Amazon.com to Walmart, investors have filed more than 140 shareholder resolutions this year, pressing companies to address employee-related issues ranging from paid leave and health and safety to abortion access, benefits and labour rights.
Shareholders and companies have reached agreements on about a third of the requests. Most of the rest will go to a vote.
"You can see more of these proposals focused on workers' rights elevating," said Nadira Narine, senior director of strategic initiatives at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which tracks activist shareholder recommendations. "In order for us to really have an impact on worker health and safety, companies need to change the way they think about their business practices."
The historic summer of 2020 exposed widespread inequities across Corporate America following the pandemic lockdowns and the murder by police of George Floyd. Three years later, concerns about inflation and a possible recession have prompted workers at companies, including Amazon, Apple and Starbucks, to organize unions as they agitate for faster change.
"When you see employees really more forcefully speaking out about workplace conditions, investors have to take note of that," said Mary Beth Gallagher, director of engagement at Domini Impact Investments, which is seeking a health-and-safety audit at Dollar General. "If not, what needs to be fixed within the system?"
Companies have promised to better balance shareholder returns with the well-being of workers, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission has been pressing companies to be more transparent about the human-capital risks to their business.
Given this backdrop, this year's proxy proposals have shifted somewhat from calls for racial audits and better board diversity to issues that more directly affect the worker such as paid leave, safety and labour rights, according to the Sustainable Investments Institute.
The surge in human-capital proposals has been met by a wave of backlash from conservative groups. There are at least 20 proxy proposals on the ballots this year from organizations that say there is a negative cost to business in meeting the demands of activist investors, said Ethan Peck, an associate for the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project.
So far, the results have been mixed. Calls for issuing a report about employee risks from new abortion rules received shareholder backing of 13% at Costco and a proposal at Apple to consider the risks of racial justice had only 1.4%.
By contrast, a majority of Starbucks shareholders voted in favour of the company preparing a report on whether it is adhering to international labour standards, while proposals related to racial and gender pay disparity received support exceeding 33% at companies including Apple and Boeing. Companies will often engage with shareholder groups when support exceeds 30%.
AFP, Reuters and Bloomberg