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US Banana Giant Chiquita Fires Thousands of Striking Workers in Panama
The Chiquita workers' strike is part of a nationwide protest movement against pension reforms approved by Panama's right-wing government.
May 23, 2025
The U.S.-headquartered banana giant Chiquita said Thursday that it moved to fire thousands of Panamanian workers who walked off the job last month as part of nationwide protests against the right-wing government's unpopular reforms to the nation's pension system.
Citing an unnamed source close to Chiquita, Reutersreported that the mass firings are expected to impact around 5,000 of the company's 6,500 Panamanian workers. José Raúl Mulino, Panama's right-wing president, defended the banana giant formerly known as United Fruit, accusing striking workers of unlawful "intransigence."
The company estimates that the strike, which began in late April, has cost it at least $75 million.
The pension reforms, known as Law 462, sparked outrage across Panama, with unions and other groups warning the changes would result in cuts to retirement benefits, particularly in the future for younger workers. The law transitions the country's pension system to an individual account structure that opponents say will be far less reliable than its predecessor.
"With the previous legislation, we could retire on 60% to 70% of our salary. Now, with the new formula, that amount drops to just 30% to 35%," said Diógenes Sánchez of Panama's main teachers' union. "It's a starvation pension."
The Associated Pressnoted Thursday that in recent weeks, "marches and occasional roadblocks have stretched from one end of the country to the other as teachers, construction workers, and other unions expressed their rejection of changes the government said were necessary to keep the social security system solvent."
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Don’t Be Fooled: the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project Is a Corporate Land Grab
This project is a textbook case of environmental injustice. It would carve through preserved farmland and forests, pollute streams and wetlands, and destroy habitats for threatened species.
May 21, 2025
The name “Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project” is a masterclass in Orwellian branding. It sounds like public service—what it really delivers is environmental destruction, labor exploitation, and corporate profit at the public’s expense.
My name is Karyn Strickler, and my family farm lies directly in the path of this 70-mile transmission line. Located in Carroll County, Maryland, our farm has been in agricultural preservation for decades. My sister, her family, and my 95-year-old father live on the land. The third generation is now growing up here. Our roots stretch back to the early 1700s in America—and 500 years before that in Switzerland.
We preserved this land for farming. Not for it to be bulldozed by a private utility company.
The MPRP is part of a growing national trend where energy infrastructure is being redirected to power unregulated, fossil-fueled data centers—putting local communities and ecosystems at risk across the country, not just in Maryland.
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) isn’t about homes or communities. It’s about servers—giant fossil fuel-powered data centers in Northern Virginia. And while these billion-dollar corporations get the power, Marylanders get the pollution, the grid drain, and the bill.
Public Service Enterprise Group couldn’t meet the labor standards required by New Jersey for a wind project. So they ran to Maryland—where wage protections are weak, enforcement is inconsistent, and union labor is often ignored. Meanwhile, construction jobs are temporary, low-wage, and often filled by undocumented workers with no protections.
This project is a textbook case of environmental injustice. It would carve through preserved farmland and forests, pollute streams and wetlands, and destroy habitats for the bog turtle and the Baltimore checkerspot—Maryland’s own state insect. These species are already threatened. MPRP could push them further toward extinction.
And let’s be clear: This isn’t about my family alone. There is widespread grassroots opposition across Carroll, Frederick, and Baltimore counties. We are farmers, homeowners, business owners, and residents who see this for what it is: a high-voltage land grab disguised as progress.
The MPRP is part of a growing national trend where energy infrastructure is being redirected to power unregulated, fossil-fueled data centers—putting local communities and ecosystems at risk across the country, not just in Maryland.
This is not reliability. It’s recklessness. It’s time Maryland lived up to its promises of equity, sustainability, and dignity for workers. The bulldozers are warming up—but so is the resistance.
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'We're at the End of Our Rope': Union NJ Transit Workers Go on Strike
"They have money for penthouse views and pet projects, just not for their frontline workers. Enough is enough," said the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
May 16, 2025
Hundreds of engineers and trainees who work for New Jersey's public transportation system went on strike early Friday, according to the union that represents the NJ Transit workers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
The strike, the first by NJ Transit workers since 1983, comes as contract negotiations have dragged out for over five years, according to the New Jersey Monitor. Wages are the key sticking point between the unionized workers and NJ Transit, which is state-owned.
The strike is poised to disrupt the commutes of some 100,000 daily rail riders, many of whom are traveling to and from Manhattan.
Thomas Haas, general chairman for the NJ Transit engineers union, said on Wednesday night before the NJ Transit board that "we, the locomotive engineers of NJ Transit are asking only for a fair and competitive wage," according to CNN.
"The last thing we want to see is that [service] to be interrupted. But we're at the end of our rope," Haas said.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) officials reached a tentative deal with NJ Transit in March, but the union's some 450 rank-and-file workers voted down the agreement, saying that it didn't include a large enough pay increase, according to Gothamist. The rejected deal teed up Friday's strike.
The rejected deal from November would have raised wages, but the union has said its members are seeking wage parity with those who work for nearby commuter rails, like the Long Island Rail Road.
"NJ Transit has a half-billion dollars for a swanky new headquarters and $53 million for decorating the interior of that unnecessary building. They gave away $20 million in revenue during a fare holiday last year," said BLET national president Mark Wallace in a statement on Thursday. "They have money for penthouse views and pet projects, just not for their frontline workers. Enough is enough. We will stay out until our members receive the fair pay that they deserve."
The union announced that picket locations have been set up, including at New York City's Penn Station.
"I have always said that any deal we reach would have to be fair to our engineers and fiscally responsible without burdening our riders or the taxpayers of New Jersey," said NJ Transit president and CEO Kris Kolluri on Thursday.
"This strike will upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans," said Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. "The path to a new contract will be paved at the negotiating table, not the picket line."
Railroads are subject to the Railway Labor Act, which means that even if members of a union reject a deal, the federal government can force both sides to accept a deal and order workers back to work. This happened in 2022, when then-President Joe Biden signed legislation averting a rail strike and forcing freight rail workers to accept a deal that multiple unions had rejected.
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