Honduras rallies for minimum wage rise

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras rallies for minimum wage rise
Wednesday 08 September 2010

Honduran workers and students marched from two university campuses to central Tegucigalpa on Tuesday to press their demand for a 15 per cent rise in the minimum wage, the return of ousted former president Manuel Zelaya and a constitutional convention.

Senior National Popular Resistance Front activist Carlos Reyes, who helped organise the demonstration, reported that thousands of other citizens held strikes and blocked stretches of highway in cities across the country.

In the capital a small group of protesters broke windows at two television stations which supported the June 28 2009 coup that toppled Mr Zelaya and the human rights commissioner's headquarters.

Others tore down the blue-and-white national flag that had been put in place last week by municipal authorities at the start of festivals commemorating the country's independence and hoisted the red-and-black banner of the Resistance Front.

Union leader Israel Salinas said that the progressive coalition of grass-roots organisations and left-wing political parties has so far collected over one million signatures on petitions calling for a constituent assembly to rewrite the country's 1982 constitution, which was largely drafted by the military, and for the safe return of Mr Zelaya from his exile in the Dominican Republic.

More:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/95032