Transit workers started an open-ended strike in São Paulo on June 5, just one week before the city, Brazil's largest, was to host the opening game of the June 12-July 13 World Cup soccer championship. According to the Subway Workers Union, the strike had paralyzed 30 of the city's 60 subway stations as of June 6; some 20 million people live in the São Paulo metropolitan area, and the subways carry about 4.5 million riders each day. Angry riders smashed turnstiles the first day of the strike at the Itaquera station, near the Arena Corinthians, the site of the June 12 game. The next day, on June 6, police agents used nightsticks and tear gas on strikers at the central Ana Rosa station when they refused to move their picket line; at least three unionists were injured.

A Cambodian court on May 30 convicted 23 workers and activists for inciting violence during a mass garment workers' strike but suspended their jail sentence, which had caused much controversy and international scrutiny. The ruling reverses the February decision of an appeals court, which refused the release of the workers and activists facing criminal charges. It has been reported that international brands such as H&M, Puma and the Gap have threatened to pull out of Cambodia if efforts are not made to prevent further human rights violations, fearing a "public relations problem." Dave Welsh, a representative of the US-based labor group Solidarity Center, stated in regard to the ruling: "The main thing is there's just an enormous amount of relief—first of all with them, with their families, and with the trade union and human rights community in general—that they are going to be freed."

Thousands of Turkish workers went on a one-day strike May 15 to express their outrage over the mining disaster at Soma, in the western province of Manisa. An explosion killed at least 284 workers at the coal mine, with hundreds more still trapped and believed dead. Some thousand unionists gathered in Ankara to march on the Labor Ministry, some wearing miners' helmets and waving banners with the image of Che Guevara. The largest mobilization was in Izmir, the nearest large city to Soma, where some 20,000 took to the streets chanting slogans against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP): "The fires of Soma will burn AKP," and "AKP murderers!" Police fired tear-gas and water cannon to break up the protest. Angry demonstrations continue in Soma itself.

Workers in Haiti's garment assembly sector observed International Workers' Day on May 1 with a march continuing their campaign for a minimum wage of 500 gourdes (US$12.69) for an eight-hour day. The protest—organized by the leftist labor organization Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle") and the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA) and backed by the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) and other groups—started at the large industrial park in the north of Port-au-Prince. After a long march including a brief protest in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MAST), the protesters planned to conclude at the statue of revolutionary hero Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the city's central Champ de Mars. Agents from the Corps for Intervention and the Maintenance of Order (CIMO), a riot police unit, blocked the marchers, hurling tear gas grenades and beating and arresting two students. Several assembly plant workers required treatment at a hospital.

An unknown number of miners—perhaps as many as 40—were buried alive as an illegal gold mine collapsed late on the night of April 30 at El Palmar, in Colombia's southern department of Cauca. Local campesinos spent May Day volunteering with Santander de Quilichao municipal brigades in a desperate effort to unearth the victims—none of whom are believed to survive. Thus far, only three bodies have been recovered, according to local Red Cross workers. Local residents said the "owners" of the mine were able to escape, but it is still unlcear exactly who they are.

Workers in several Iranian industrial centers marched on May Day in defiance of official attempts to shut them down. In the western city of Sanandaj, placards called for the release of political prisoners and detained labor leaders. Employees of the Khuzestan Pipe Factory in Ahwaz, also in the country's west, gathered in front of the governorate office with placards reading "Deprived workers in Khuzestan Pipe factory have not been paid for 6 years," and "Deprived workers in the Ahwaz City Hall have not been paid for 5 years." Security forces surrounded the march in order to prevent the spread of protests. Similar marches, bringing out hundreds, were reported from Khorramabad, Saveh and Zanjan, although a hevay police presence in the central square of Qom prevented workers from gathering there. Quick arrests also shut down an attempt by transit workers to march in the capital. Ebrahim Madadi, a leader of the Union of the Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, is among those detained. (PMOI, May 3; NCRI, RFE/RL, May 1)

Clashes rocked central Istanbul on May 1 as Turkish protesters attempted to defy a government ban on May Day rallies at the city's iconic Taksim Square. Police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to demonstrators, some of whom responded with hurled fire-bombs. Authorities shut parts of the city's public transport system, erected steel barricades and deployed thousands of riot police to block access to the square. Only a handful of trade union leaders were allowed into the area under police guard to lay flowers commemorating the deaths of at least 34 people there during a May Day gathering in 1977.

Bypassing Parliament, on April 16 Haitian president Michel Martelly ("Sweet Micky") issued a decree setting new minimum wage levels for different categories of employees, to go into effect on May 1. The decree basically follows recommendations made on Nov. 29 by the tripartite Higher Council on Wages (CSS), with the minimum wage ranging from 260 gourdes (US$6.60) a day in a category that includes bank employees, electricians and telecommunication workers to just 125 gourdes (US$3.17) a day for domestic workers. The decree confirmed the most controversial of the CSS's recommendations, a 225 (US$5.71) gourde daily minimum for hourly workers in the country's garment assembly plants, which produce for export and benefit from tax and tariff exemptions; this is just a 25 gourde increase over the minimum in effect since October 2012 under a 2009 law. For piece-rate assembly workers—the majority of the sector's work force—the rate remains at the October 2012 level, 300 gourdes (US$7.61) a day. (Haïti Libre, April 19)