Five thousand dockworkers at the important port of Santos will be voting to strike on Monday 23rd March to stop work because of the fear of the spread of coronavirus. Managers at the the port have been allowed to quarantine whilst dockers have been ordered to continue working.
In Iran 3,500 iron ore miners in the south east province of Kerman have gone out on strike for the same reasons, with senior managers being allowed to self-quarantine.
In the United States 1,000 car workers went out on strike at the Fiat Chrysler plant in Detroit. They were expected to be at the factory, even though other workers had been sent home because of risk of infection. The virus lives longest on steel, and workers have not been provided with sanitisers, with no washrooms on the site.
This followed similar wildcat strikes for the same reason in the car industry throughout Michigan and Ohio.