104. Professional strike

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra strike happened in 1999. It lasted for 11 weeks. This strike was developed due to prior pay cuts and minimal wages.

In 1991 the orchestra started developing financial problems. By 1992 pay cuts were made for both musicians and the management; otherwise, the orchestra would have had to file for bankruptcy. Musicians reluctantly accepted, hearing promises that the pay cuts would eventually be paid back in 1995 during the next labour discussions.

On Sunday 26 December Bolivia’s government abruptly ended a six-year freeze on fuel prices, raising the price of gasoline by 73% and diesel by 83%.  Vice president Alvaro Garcia said this change in policy was necessary because the subsidy cost US$380 million a year- 2% of Bolivia’s gross domestic national product and US$150 million of the gasoline was smuggled into other countries and sold at higher prices.  The cost of the subsidies was projected to increase to over US$1 billion in 2011.

After achieving independence from French colonial rule in 1960, the Central African Republic was controlled by a series of military coups.  On 20 September 1981 General Anre Kolingba overthrew the authority of President Dacko.  

On 12 January 2009 the health workers in Gabon’s public hospitals in Libreville went on strike. Following a prominent and successful strike in the education sector, health workers were inspired to begin their own campaign. They demanded that the government provide higher wages and better working conditions and recommit to its agreement from a previous strike in 2003. Workers also sought more modern equipment for their hospitals so that they could provide care comparable to that of the high-tech private hospitals with which the public hospital competed. 

Starting in 1968, Salvadoran President Fidel Sanchez Hernandez began focusing his presidency on accomplishing three major reforms, in education, administration, and agriculture. The education reform he put in place upset Salvadoran teachers for three main reasons.  First, teachers were required to pass every student to the next grade, when before they had “held-back” failing students.  Second, the new mathematics curriculum taught concepts that Salvadoran teachers had never taught before and considered pointless.

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On 1 March 2012, 60,000 healthcare industry workers in Kenya began an indefinite strike in order to improve working conditions and salaries. Due to the massive commitment from healthcare workers, workers were prepared to suspend operations in hospitals throughout Kenya. 

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In March 2012, the parliament of the province of Ontario in Canada notified public schoolteachers that they would have a two-year salary freeze.   Premier Dalton McGuinty, the head of the provincial government, announced this initiative as a step toward reducing the government’s $14.8 billion deficit. On 11 September, the Ontario Parliament passed Bill 115, called the “Putting Students First Act,” which locked all public school teachers into a two-year contract with frozen wages, decreased teachers’ sick days, and prohibited teachers from going on strike.

Student governments of Chilean universities assembled to be represented as the Confederation of Chilean Students Federations (CONFECH), the leading organization of the campaign. College students Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson took leadership of the protests and were both integral in creating the "Social Agreement for Chilean Education" (Acuerdo Social por la Educación Chilena), the proposal that was presented to the Chilean government. The students of CONFECH  demanded the following:

Tuba Group factory workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, stood up against
exploitation in the summer of 2014. The company, in which five factories
made products for businesses like Walmart and H&M, had become
notorious in recent years for some of the lowest employee wages in the
world (about US $38 a month) and the 2012 “Tarzeen factory fire” that
killed 112 workers. Since February of 2014, Delwar Hossain, the owner of
the group, had been in jail for the workplace negligence that lead to
the tragedy. However, workers continued to face unfair treatment.

During the 1950’s and 60’s, as many countries advanced and became more
industrialized, doctors in organized medicine tried to push back against
the post-World War II trend of increased state involvement in medical
care. The worry was that state involvement would, over time, reduce
doctors’ income and self-governance.  Belgium was a unitary state in the
1960’s and only became a constitutional federation in 1993. Belgium’s
social insurance system was private but also corporatist.  At the time,
the system consisted of five health insurance funds called mutualités.

In the early 2000s, as technological advancements expanded media
sources, media writers faced challenges receiving compensation for their
work that producers redistributed online and through television reruns.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA), comprised of the Writers Guild of
America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE)
represented the interests of over 12,000 “writers in the motion picture,
broadcast, cable, and new media industries in both entertainment and
news.” On 18 May 2007, the WGA released a “Pattern of Demands” to the 

The British commissioner governed the state of Mysore in southern India from 1831 to 1881 when the administration reinstated the pre-existing Wodeyar (Wadiyar) Dynasty. Mysore became a princely state with the Wodeyar Dynasty ruling under the paramountcy of the British. The reigning Maharaja (king) during the Indian independence movement was Jayachamaraja Wodeyar. On 15 August 1947, India gained its independence from the British Raj.

In 2012, Swaziland was a small landlocked country in southern Africa ruled by  King Mswati III. Sixty three percent of the country’s population lived below the poverty line. Government spending on education had continuously decreased since 2008. With the economy virtually stagnated, the International Monetary Fund had urged the government in February 2012 to reduce the size of its civil service.

In Liberia, a small country on the west coast of Africa, the Monrovia Consolidated School System (MCSS) oversaw all public schools in the capital city of Monrovia. Its three main high school campuses were William V.S. Tubman, G.W. Gibson, and D-Tweh High School. As of 2013, enrollment in MCSS schools totaled over 20,000 students.

The city of Rio de Janeiro is home to 6 million people with approximately 1.5 million residents living in favelas. These residential communities, named after the favela trees native to the region, are commonly misunderstood by outsiders. Although 32% of favela residents belong to the lower-class, a 2013 study found that 85% of people residing in favelas like where they live. Some favelas have high crime rates, but many are high-functioning, self-governing communities.

In December 2013, Argentinian police forces throughout the country went on strike to protest low salaries that failed to match rising living costs. Analysts estimated inflation at approximately 25% that year, although the government of Argentina said it was less than half that rate. The strikes provoked looting, robberies, hundreds of injuries, and over a dozen deaths before the governor of Córdoba, José Manuel de la Sota, conceded to the demand and doubled police force salaries. Manuel de la Sota’s decision prompted police departments in other provinces to follow suit.

In 2012, the United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service (NHS)—the country’s public healthcare provider—proposed changes to healthcare policy in the UK. These changes would raise the retirement age for medical doctors from 60 years of age to 68 years of age, and increase fees on retirement funds above the normal level for public workers. The changes also made it easier for the NHS to subcontract care to private firms. Medical doctors in the public system, led by the British Medical Association (BMA)—their union—proposed a strike.