PR Newswire, August 30, 2004, Monday

Copyright 2004 PR Newswire Association, Inc.
PR Newswire

August 30, 2004, Monday

SECTION: FINANCIAL NEWS

DISTRIBUTION: TO NATIONAL, FOREIGN AND LABOR EDITORS

HEADLINE: Labor Day Weekend Pickets to Demand Danish Government Curb Worker Rights Abuses;
American Trade Unions Cite Violations by Danish Steamship Giant of UN Labor Codes

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Aug. 30

BODY:
On Friday September 3, 2004 as the Labor Day weekend begins, Teamsters and Dockworkers will picket the Danish Embassy in Washington DC and at twenty-two Danish Consulates from Alaska to Puerto Rico.
Citing what Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa calls "an outrageous record of threatening, intimidating and terminating port truck drivers in the United States and the Third World" the labor unions will demand that the Danish Government call on the Copenhagen-based Maersk Sealand steamship company to honor the labor conventions adopted by the UN's International Labor Organization (ILO). "Maersk treats their Danish workers with respect," Hoffa states. "They should use the same labor relations standard in the other countries where they do business."
At the conclusion of the picketing, union leaders will meet with Danish Embassy and Consulate officials and leave them with a copy of the ILO Convention on Labor Rights and a study by Lance Compa, an expert in international labor rights who teaches labor law at Cornell University.
Demonstrations will take place in Anchorage, AK; Washington, DC; Boston, MA; New York, NY; Baltimore, MD; Norfolk, VA; Charleston, SC; Jacksonville, Tampa and Miami, FL; New Orleans, LA; Houston, TX; San Diego, Los Angeles and Oakland, CA; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Minneapolis, MN, Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI, Cleveland, OH; Atlanta, GA; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
For exact locations and times of the picket activity and for a copy of the Compa report on Maersk's labor rights abuses, write to port@teamster.org.
SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters

CONTACT: Galen Munroe of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, +1-202-624-6911