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Construction

Blockaders Delay Work At A Megaprison Construction Site

Comrades of Elliot Cuciurean – also known as Jellytot – blockaded one of the government’s new megaprisons on Tuesday 31 January. Jellytot has been in prison since last year for breaching an injunction against protest at the High Speed 2 (HS2) train line. In the early hours of Tuesday 31 January, protesters erected tripods to block the entrances of the megaprison construction site at Full Sutton in East Yorkshire. The government has awarded private company Kier £400m for the construction. The protesters said they were: shutting down construction as an act of solidarity with the increasing numbers of protestors being sent to prison A later update added that: Four activists occupied the bamboo tripods for over ten hours, preventing any deliveries from being made. Police forces attended the scene but failed to remove the protestors. Protestors came down from the tripods at around 4pm, after ensuring construction was stopped for the entire day. Two arrests were made and three more were charged with aggravated trespass at the site. Those arrested were released from custody in the early hours of the morning

Construction Workers Protest In Switzerland For Rights And Dignity

On October 17, Monday, construction workers marched in the Swiss town of Bellinzona, protesting the apathy of employers and the state towards the pressing needs of the workers in the sector. More than 2500 people participated in the march called by the trade union Unia Ticino. Protesters denounced the attack on the rights of workers. More protests are planned for November 1 and November 7-8 in other cities. Progressive political parties including the Swiss Party of Labor and the Communist Party have expressed support and solidarity to the protesting workers. According to reports, the workers in the construction sector are unhappy over overtime and working in precarious weather conditions. The existing national agreement (CN) of the main construction sector, which dictates the working conditions of more than 80,000 workers, will expire at the end of this year.

How The Construction Industry Preys On Workers Released From Prison

Bernard Callegari, a member of the Construction and Building Laborers’ Local 79 union in New York City, argues that every laborer in his craft jurisdiction deserves to work safely, with dignity and a fair wage. This is why he knew the union needed to take action when its members began to notice that a particular kind of worker was being taken advantage of in the local construction industry. “We noticed that there was a huge upswing in the workforce that was being used by these body shops, that they were focusing on and targeting the formerly incarcerated as a workforce to be exploited,” said Callegari. This concerned him not just as a union worker, whose local is part of the bigger Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), but also as someone who himself had once been incarcerated.

Construction Stalls As Concrete Workers Strike For Wages, Health Care

As the omicron-fueled fifth wave of COVID-19 disrupts schools, grocery stores, airports, and hospitals, construction across King County has come to a standstill as well, albeit for different reasons. For nearly eight weeks now, drivers and workers have been striking at Gary Merlino Construction and the region’s five major concrete suppliers. As a result, many of Puget Sound’s largest construction projects — including affordable housing and the Federal Way Link light rail extension project in the South End — are now on hold. After their previous labor contracts expired in July and months of stalled negotiations fell flat, the strike began on Nov. 19, when 34 dump truck drivers at Gary Merlino Construction set up picket lines at their facilities in Renton and South Park.

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