Spaniards are hoarding food and fuel because the truck drivers are on strike and blockading the border; In France, the highways are backed up all the way to Bordeaux, 200 km (125 miles) away. People are lining up at gas stations, 40% of which have run out of fuel.

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The strike -- the longest major auto industry walkout since the GM strike of 1970 -- was considered by many UAW activists to be a watershed moment in the fight to maintain union standards in the auto parts industry. Members' reactions to the settlement varied.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) will join representatives of the Coalition for Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the Burger King Corporation at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol to announce that the corporation has agreed to work with CIW to improve wages and working conditions for the farm workers who harvest tomatoes for Burger King.

After Hurricane Katrina, billions of dollars came into the Gulf Coast region to rebuild. Signal International used these funds to hoarding much of the money and utilizing the exploitive “guest worker” visas to hire workers from india.

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Burger King's Senior Analyst of Communications, Denise Wilson, sent an e-mail stating the company had "terminated two employees who participated in unauthorized activity on public Web sites which did not reflect the company's views and which were in violation of company policy and its ‘Code of Business Ethics and Conduct.'"

Though WIlson refused to comment as to the identity of the fired employees, they were soon identified as vice president Steven Grover and spokesman Keva Silversmith.

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About 60 employees at Aramark-managed venues recently marched in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center as part of a nationwide effort by the Service Employees International Union to organize the company's workers.

According to Dan Schlademan, property services director for SEIU in Chicago who was on hand in Houston for the protest, negotiations have been "going horribly". The SEIU is seeking a card check neutrality agreement, which would permit a union to organize workers without company input and without a secret ballot election. Aramark and SEIU had a previous deal, but Schlademan said it expired in August.

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The International Labor Rights Forum is hosting the Mother’s Day Roses Raffle to offer people throughout the United States a chance to send a special gift to a loved one while also advancing the rights of women in the Latin American rose industry.

There are 40,000 flower workers in Ecuador and over 100,000 in Colombia, working to grow, harvest, and package the roses and carnations sold in the United States. More than half of them are women who commonly face labor rights violations including sexual harassment, pesticide-related illnesses, and forced pregnancy testing. Proceeds from the raffle will support the legal, health and safety, and advocacy work done through ILRF's Fairness in Flowers Campaign.

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The peace group CODEPINK: Women for Peace is calling upon the U.S military to debar Halliburton/KBR from future contracts in Iraq due to its failure to protect its women contractors and for new measures to be taken to protect female contractors in Iraq.

Several thousand garment workers from around 20 factories staged a demonstration after authorities closed the factory of SQ Sweaters Ltd in Mirpur following a two-day strike by factory workers who were protesting the death of one of their co-workers.

Workers of SQ Sweaters alleged that authorities forced a worker to work a night shift on December 30, 2007, although she was ill. As her condition deteriorated, she was taken home at around 3:00am and she died an hour later.

The factory manager subsequently announced that the factory would be closing.

As workers from other factories started joining the demonstrators in large numbers, other factories were forced to shut down. The workers planned to continue their demonstration until compensation to the deceased worker’s family are met.

Demonstrators included Bangladesh Garments Workers Mukti Andolon, Textile Garments Workers Federation, Garments Workers Unity Forum, Biplobi Nari Sanghati, Ganosanghati Andolan and Bangladesh Jatiya Mahila Ainjibi Samity.

Protesters picketed a Wal-Mart store in Mexico City to show support for employees who are trying to form a union at the company, the nation's largest employer. The protesters, who included labor activists and union members from other industries, urged shoppers to boycott Wal-Mart for the day. Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, two-thirds owned by Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has about 160,000 workers in the country.

In the U.S., Wal-Mart faces more than 70 suits in which it is accused of wage-law violations. In response, Wal-Mart de Mexico issued two written statements in response to the demonstration, including a nine-point fact sheet with salary information, number of jobs created, number of female employees, and investment in training. It said its lowest salary is at least 18 percent higher than the minimum wage.

Wal-Mart de Mexico's salaries, benefits, and work conditions are similar to those of other retail chains in Mexico which take advantage of labor laws that favor employers, said Alfonso Bouzas, who has researched labor laws for 33 years for Mexico's National Autonomous University.