A decree by Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solís authorizing payments to former banana workers sickened by the pesticide Nemagon became official on Dec. 1 with the measure's publication in the government's gazette. Under the decree the government's National Insurance Institute (INS) will pay out from 25% to 100% of the medical bills for workers who suffered physical or psychological damage from Nemagon, with the percentage based on their years of exposure to the pesticide. The decree currently covers 13,925 former banana workers; cases are pending for 9,233 of the workers' children and 1,742 of the workers' spouses. More than 11,000 other applications were dismissed.

Colombian national police and several employees of the US embassy in Bogotá kicked and beat injured former employees of GM Colmotores, Colombian subsidiary of the Detroit-based General Motors Company (GM), during a protest in front of the embassy Nov. 18, according to the workers and a report by local TV station Canal Capital. Members of the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of Colmotores (Asotrecol) have been encamped outside the embassy since August 2011 as part of a campaign to get GM to reinstate them and compensate them for the injuries they received while working at the plant. The attack came on a day when the workers' supporters in the US filed a complaint with the US Justice Department and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charging GM with bribing Colombian officials in violation of a US law, the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) hosted a special event on Nov. 14 in Washington, DC to present a plan that El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—Central America's "Northern Triangle"—are proposing as a response to the spike earlier this year in immigration to the US by minors from their countries. The "Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle: A Road Map" was originally released in September and is similar to programs announced at a July summit in Washington. However, the IADB event, with US vice president Joseph Biden and the three Central American presidents in attendance, "was the real 'coming out' party for the proposals," the DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) wrote in its "Americas Blog."

On Nov. 13 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), an agency that investigates federal spending for Congress, released a report on the US government's handling of labor violations in countries with which it has "free trade" agreements (FTAs). Recent FTAs, such as the 2004 Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), have requirements for participating countries to meet certain standards in labor practices. The GAO claimed to find progress in this area in the partner countries—but also "persistent challenges to labor rights, such as limited enforcement capacity, the use of subcontracting to avoid direct employment, and, in Colombia and Guatemala, violence against union leaders."

Some 500 people gathered Nov. 16 at a Central Luzon property of the family of Philippines President Benigno Aquino to commemorate a confrontation 10 years ago between government forces and striking workers, and to demand justice for the seven men killed. Protesters, all local rural workers, burned an effigy of Aquino riding a bulldozer. In what survivors group Ambala calls the "Hacienda Luisita massacre," police and military troops retook a section of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) sugar complex that had been occupied by members of United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU). Although security forces were acting on a court order, the strikers resisted, saying talks were ongoing with the management of both CAT and Hacienda Luisita Inc (HLI), the landowner. Aquino at the time of the massacre was a lawmaker representing the local Tarlac province in Manila, while also serving as manager of the Hacienda Luisita estate. The estate is owned by the Cojuangco family—that of the president's mother, ex-president Corazon Aquino.

The Costa Rican government and unionized dockworkers at the city of Limón on the Caribbean coast reached an accord the night of Nov. 5 ending a strike that started on Oct. 22. The strikers agreed to return to work on Nov. 6 in exchange for the government's promise that the port's management, the Board of Port Administration and Economic Development of the Atlantic Shelf (JAPDEVA), wouldn't penalize them for striking; people arrested for damaging containers on Oct. 24 will still be subject to prosecution. The accord did not address the strike's issue—a 33-year concession for the port granted to the Dutch company APM Terminals, a subsidiary of the giant Danish shipping multinational A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. The parties agreed to continue negotiations on this issue, although the government insisted that clause 9.1 of the concession contract, which concerns APM Terminal's monopoly on handling containers, was not negotiable.

A longstanding dispute over the privatization of the port at Limón on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast led unionized dockworkers at the port's Limón and Moín terminals to walk off the job on Oct. 22 for the second time in two years. The open-ended strike left three ships stranded at the two terminals, which handle some 80% of Costa Rica's foreign trade. Facing his first major labor crisis since he took office on May 8, President Luis Guillermo Solís, of the center-left Citizen Action Party (PAC), responded quickly. He sent some 150 police officers to take control of the terminals late on Oct. 22; 68 people were arrested in the operation. The port was reopened the next morning, with foreign contract workers under police guard. Union officials denied that the port was operating normally, and as of Oct. 25 negotiations hadn't started between the union and the government.

"Dozens of mainlanders were taken away by the police because they openly supported Occupy Central and at least ten of them have been detained… They are in Jiangxi, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, etc," Hong Kong-based blogger and journalist Annie Zhang posted on her Facebook page on Oct. 1, the 65th National Day of the People's Republic of China. (ChinaFile, Oct. 3) The group Human Rights In China has documented at least seven mainlanders detained for expressing support for Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement. These include the poet Wang Zang, who has become a vocal supporter of Occupy Central. Wuhan rights activist Wang Fang was taken away by police after posting photos of herself raising placards in support of Occupy Central at the Beijing south station. Beijing rights defender Han Ying was taken from her home by police after posting messages of solidarity with Occupy Central on Weibo. Also detained after posting photos of the Occupy Central movement on Weibo is Shenzhen activist Wang Long, who sued China Unicom earlier this year for blocking access to Google. Shanghai activist Shen Yanqiu was detained after posting photos of herself with a shaved head in support for the Hong Kong protesters. (Shanghaiist, Oct. 5; HRIC, Oct. 3; Channel News Asia, Oct. 1)