13 March, 2002Metals and mining group continues its assault on workers' and trade union rights.

12 March, 2002Majority of IAM mechanics at United vote in favour of latest contract proposal.

7 March, 2002A two-year contract offering improved conditions has been signed at the BHP Billiton-owned nickel mine.

5 March, 2002In order to protect its steel industry, the USA will place tariffs of up to 30 per cent on most imported steel, an action likely to lead to an international trade dispute.

5 March, 2002Switzerland will continue to have one of the longest legal workweeks in Europe.

19 December, 2002Workers in the majority of European countries abandoned their trade unions in the 1990s. For the Finnish Metalworkers' Union the situation has been the opposite. The deep recession and mass unemployment at the start of the decade was followed by a unique increase in members, especially among young metalworkers. Metal World visited the northern outpost of Oulu, Finland's Silicon Valley.

19 December, 2002Dutch electronics transnational to transfer optical storage production to Taiwan.

19 December, 2002Luiz Inácio da Silva, better known as Lula, has been elected president of Brazil. IMF secretariat member Toni Ferigo gives his personal account of the former leader of the IMF metal-worker affiliate CNM-CUT.

18 December, 2002The Costa Rican distributor of Mercedes-Benz fired workers who were trying to form a local of the union "ANTEP".

16 December, 2002In Marcello Malentacchi's just-published opinion column, he describes the IMF Executive Committee's recent visit to the maquiladoras of northern Mexico.