On Jan. 19 a group of Haitian immigrant workers reached an agreement with international organizations and Dominican authorities to leave an encampment they and family members had maintained in front of the Dominican Labor Ministry in Santo Domingo since Dec. 14. The 112 mostly undocumented workers said they were owed a total of 15 million pesos (about US$368,550) in severance pay and benefits after two coconut processing plants, Coquera Kilómetro 5 and Coquera Real, in nearby San Cristóbal province went out of business.

More than 1,000 migrant workers in Shanghai went on strike and held 18 managers hostage for a day and a half following a dispute over the introduction of a draconian new disciplinary policy, which including strict time limits on bathroom breaks and fines for being late. Hundreds of riot police were mobilized to the Shanghai Shinmei Electric Company plant, after workers seized the complex Jan. 18 and held captive 10 Japanese nationals and eight Chinese managers. To give them a taste of their own medicine, the managers were prevented from using the toilet for the duration of their detention. They were released unharmed after the bosses agreed to withdraw the new speed-up policy, issued an apology for its introduction, and promised a pay raise. However, clashes broke out between workers and police after the managers were released, leaving several workers hospitalized, including with broken bones. (LibCom.org, Jan. 23; AP, Jan. 22; South China Morning Post, Jan. 21)

More than 100 Haitian immigrant workers and their family members remained encamped in front of the Dominican Labor Ministry in Santo Domingo as of Jan. 10 to demand severance pay and other benefits they say they were owed when two coconut processing plants in nearby San Cristóbal province went out of business. According to the workers' lawyers, the owner of Coquera Kilómetro 5 and Coquera Real, Rafael Alonzo Luna, declared bankruptcy in an irregular form and denied benefits to employees who had worked at the plants for up to 14 years. Conditions at the encampment, which the workers have maintained since Dec. 14, were said to be deteriorating, but the group's spokesperson, Elmo Ojilus, said the workers planned to continue their protest.

A wave of store lootings, the first in Argentina since 2001, started on Dec. 20 when people with covered faces broke into six supermarkets in San Carlos de Bariloche, in the southwestern province of Río Negro. At the request of local authorities, the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner sent 400 members of the Gendarmería militarized police to the city, which is best known as an Andean ski resort popular during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. The national government blamed small criminal gangs, while local authorities said anarchist groups were responsible.

Following up on an exposé last April of bribery by Wal-Mart de México, the Mexican subsidiary of US retailer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the Dec. 18 edition of the New York Times provided details on how the company used payoffs to get around community opposition and building and environmental regulations that might slow down its campaign to build more stores. Reporters David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab wrote that by reviewing tens of thousands of documents they had identified 19 Wal-Mart stores whose construction was aided by corruption.

Two unidentified men on a motorcycle gunned down Colombian labor leader Milton Enrique Rivas Parra on Dec. 11 in Puerto Gaitán, a city in the central department of Meta. He was hit by 17 bullets, according to his family. Rivas was a leader in the Meta section of the Workers' Labor Union of the Petroleum Industry (USO) and in a local grassroots organization, the Villa Ortiz Community Action Council. He had been receiving death threats, which he first reported to Colombian prosecutors on Aug. 25.

On Nov. 20 Jorge Parra, a former employee of GM Colmotores, the Colombian subsidiary of the Detroit-based General Motors Company (GM), resumed a liquids-only hunger strike that he and 11 other former employees started last summer to pressure the company to reinstate them and compensate them for work-related injuries. They had suspended the fast on Aug. 24 after General Motors agreed to enter mediation, but they decided to go back on strike when management appeared unwilling to meet their demands. The former workers say Colmotores fired them because they developed disabilities due to injuries on the job, repetitive stress injuries or other work-related illnesses.

Thousands of Bangladeshi workers blocked the streets of the Savar industrial zone near Dhaka Nov. 26, throwing stones at factories and smashing vehicles, to demand justice for 112 people killed in a garment factory fire. Responding to the protests, authorities two days later arrested three managers of the plant. Some 200 factories were closed for the day throughout the Ashulia industrial belt that rings the capital. Although the factory had a total of 335 fire extinguishers and 300 trained employees to fight fire in emergency situations, there was no visible efforts to douse the flames. The fire alarm went off, but witnesses say that a number of doors were locked by the management, preventing workers from escaping.