 Hello and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes, a show from People's Dispatch where we bring your stories of resistance and defiance from across the world as the collective strength of the people fights back against the horrors of capitalism and imperialism and strives for a better world. On August 24th, more than 40,000 people gathered for a massive anti-fascist demonstration in Dresden in Germany. The rally, which was held under the banner of Unital Bar, which is the Indivisible, was called by a platform of 400 organizations to counter the ultra-right maneuvers and the hate campaign ahead of the regional elections which are scheduled for the first week of September. The ultra-right neo-Nazi political groups, including the Alternative for Germany, AFD, and the European Patriots against Western Islamization, have become a strong presence in the East German states of Saxony and its capital, which is Dresden. According to the reports, the rally was attended by trade unions, anti-fascist groups, human rights groups, environmentalists, LGBT groups, as well as center and left political parties. The rally called for solidarity rather than exclusion and for an open and free society and has vowed to resist the rise of neo-Nazi and fascist forces in the country. The organizers of the rally claimed that it was one of the largest demonstrations in the city since the reunification of Germany in 1990. Ahead of the Unital Bar demonstration, the organizers called on people to rise up against discrimination, poverty, racism, sexism, and disinferentialism and nationalism in all its forms. Before regional elections take place in Saxony, Brandenburg, we are standing up to renew our commitment to protecting a united and vibrant society which is bounded by the ideals of freedom and social justice, said the organizers in a statement. In 2014, state elections to Saxony and the Christian Democratic Union had got 59 seats and formed a coalition with the SPD, which had 18 seats, to get a majority in the 126th seat assembly. The left received 27 seats and the AFD got 14 seats. And later on, the AFD emerged as a major party in Saxony, achieving the highest percentage of the state's votes both in 2017 and the federal elections and the 2019 EU elections. The AFD has initiated several racist Islamophobic and anti-semitic and anti-immigrant campaigns in the country to gain support and popularity. The National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa or NUMSA has warned that a strike action might be imminent given the unwillingness of fuel station owners and operators to engage with the demands of the fuel station workers. These employers, described by the NUMSA as among the most abusive and exploitative in the motor sector, are represented at the Motor Industries Bargaining Council by their associations, which is the Fuel Retailers Association of South Africa and the Retail Motor Industry Organization. NUMSA represents around 306,000 workers in the sector that are employed in fuel stations, in car dealerships and automotive component companies. The union has demanded a 12% wage hike for all these workers at the negotiations in MIMPCO. The employers' associations, however, have offered only a 5% hike. While this is a general demand for workers across the motor sector, NUMSA has also specifically demanded transport allowance for fuel station workers who are employed on night shifts. The employers have refused to even engage with the workers on this particular demand. NUMSA has said this in a statement. This is despite the stipulation in the country's Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which defines night work as a work which is done between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. The section 17, Part 2 of the Act states that an employer may only be required to permit an employer to perform night work if, A, the employee is compensated by the payment of an allowance, which may be a shift allowance or by a reduction of working hours, and B, if transportation is available between the employee's place of residence and the workplace at the commencement and the conclusion of the employee's shift. Our members work awkward hours and often have to travel to work either very early in the morning or very late at night at times when public transportation is often unavailable. Men and women who work in patrol stations are often forced to walk long distances in dark. As a result, they are often victims of muggings and sexual assault. Read the statement by NUMSA. They also went on to state that bosses often do not provide alternative transportation to workers and our members risk their lives getting to and fro from work. We condemn these employer bodies for turning a deaf ear to this and demand for a night shift and transport allowances. The industry-wide collective agreement was negotiated for the period between 2016 and 2019 and is set to expire very soon on August 31. If a new agreement in which these demands are addressed is not reached before the expiry of the existing one, the workers will also lose their bonuses, said Fakameeli Lubeh Majula, a spokesperson of NUMSA who told this to the people's dispatch. In an attempt to resolve this, a last-minute meeting with the employers is now scheduled to take place at MIBCO on August 29. They said that we hope that we will be able to resolve the impasse. If that fails, we will lodge a dispute and if that dispute crosses with the commission and for conciliation, mediation and arbitration does not work out, then we will go on a strike, she said. The social unity, a platform bringing together more than 70 organizations across Chile, has called a national protest on September 5 in defense of workers' rights and against the labour reforms promoted by the right-wing government of Chilean president Sebastian Pinera. The platforms and the member organizations are engaged in activism across the fields of social, human, environmental and workers' academics and students' rights, with a slogan of, we are tired and we are together. The organizations have urged the Chilean people to join the protest and to mobilize alongside them. On August 21, under the banner of no-to-anti-trade union reform, hundreds of workers mobilized in major cities of Chile to reject Pinera's labour reforms. The call for the mobilizations was given by the National Trade Union Federation, the workers' United Centre of Chile and this was done on its 31st anniversary. In Santiago, workers marched from the CUT headquarters to the labour directorate to express their discontent with three regressive bills which are being pushed by Pinera's administration. The Federation believes that these bills concerning the flexibility of workdays and the modernization of DT and the electronic payment of severance package pose a serious threat to workers' rights. The bill that aims to modernize the DT was called as an anti-union offensive by Barbara Figuera, the president of the CUT. While addressing a gathering of the workers in front of the DT building, she said in her quote, the government has only one great objective, which is to remove the bargaining pass from the unions and to weaken the DT as a guaranteeing institution to defend the weakest in the employment relationship. Economic Minister Juan Andres Fonten has also admitted that the modernization bill directly serves the interests of big entrepreneurs. Fonten said that such a project would provide necessary flexibility for companies to find out how to better occupy the time in which the workers can be more productive. The mobilization was also in the support of a bill introduced by the communist leaders Camila Vallejo of the Communist Party of Chile and Carol Cariola of the Communist Youth of Chile. The reforms proposed by these two congresswomen aim to reduce the country's maximum workweek from 45 hours to 40 hours. According to a survey conducted by the Institute of Labor Studies Foundation and the Market and Opinion Research International, about 63% of Chilean workers support this reform and would prefer working for 40 hours a week. However, Pineda has called the bill unconstitutional and has vowed to fight it in the court if it gets approved. Regarding Pineda's labor reforms, Barbara Frigua, the president of CUT, has said that, we are not going to accept flexibility and we will not be behind the fake proposals like the ones that they want to propose today. She reiterated support for the bill that reduces working hours from 45 to 40 hours without flexibility or reduced pay. The CUT is the biggest workers movement in Chile. It was founded in 1953 by Clotario Blest with the objective of grouping together all labor movements in order to defend their rights and to give representation to their demands. CUT was suppressed after the military coup of 1973 and was refounded in August 1988 towards the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. This is all that we have for you today on this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. For more such stories and videos visit our website which is peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Thank you for watching.