Pre Christmas Strike
Workers at Amazon’s biggest logistics centre in Spain are planning to strike for eight days in November, December and January, including on the online retailer’s “Black Friday” sales bonanza, a union said yesterday.
The employees at Amazon’s San Fernando facility near Madrid have been demanding better wages and work conditions for months and have already staged strikes this year, to no avail.
the CCOO union said 1,800 workers would have the opportunity to join the strike, although it is as yet unclear how many will take part.
The strikes will take place on November 23 and 24, to coincide with “Black Friday” as well as December 7, 9, 15, and 30, and January 3 and 4.
Immigration
Illegal border crossings into the EU have dropped to a five-year low, with Spain now the main destination, accounting for 60 percent of new arrivals acording to the EU’s border agency Frontex. Frontex yesterday reported 118,900 illegal border crossings in the first 10 months of the year, which is more than 30 percent lower than in the same period in 2017.
Kosovo
The government has decided to grant athletes from Kosovo the same rights as other nationalities when participating in international competitions in Spain.
A joint statement from the International Olympic Committee and the Spanish Olympic Committee yesterday welcomed the decision, which comes after Spain prohibited the use of Kosovo symbols during the Karate World Championships in Madrid last week.
Spain is one of the few European countries that do not recognize the former province which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
Nuclear Accident
An appeals court will force US officials to identify how many troops may have been exposed to radioactive debris from a 1966 plane crash in Spain, a move that supporters hope will be the precursor to a class-action lawsuit for overdue benefits.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims made the unusual ruling demanding the records’.
Veterans involved in the accident have been unsuccessfully petitioning since the mid-1970s, after a host of strange cancers and other illnesses began appearing among individuals involved.
In January 1966, seven airmen were killed and four more injured when a B-52 crashed during a refueling mission off the coast of Spain. The B-52 was carrying four nuclear weapons at the time.
The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impact with the ground near the town of Palomares, spreading radioactive plutonium over hundreds of acres.