From FijiLive.com, Workers Online, AAP reports, and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement

With Fiji in turmoil after rebel leader George Speight deposed the democratically elected government, workers' jobs and conditions are under attack.

The garment industry is the largest sector to suffer from retrenchments as a result of Speight's anti-democratic politics, with 1,483 lay-offs by late July said the Department of Labour. This compares with 1,407 redundancies in the hotel and resort industry, and 832 in the furniture sector.

By late July redundancy figures totalled 6,068 in the bus, public works, small retail outlets, printing and mining industries.

Bosses' clique, the Tourism Action Group, is particularly nervous about the immediate future of the industry due to air flight bans to Fiji imposed by governments in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and the UK, which were imposed on 19 May.

On 29 June Fiji Trade Unions Congress (TUC) General Secretary, Felix Anthony, announced that the TUC had brokered a deal with the employers. Bosses agreed to reinstate all workers laid off as a result of the trade ban imposed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

In an "act of good faith" on 29 June the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) nervously lifted the trade ban imposed in May on mail, air and sea, warning that the ban could be resumed if a solution to the crisis was not found in line with Fiji's 1997 Constitution. MUA leader, John Coombs, compared his union's action with the freight ban the union enforced during the ANC's struggle against apartheid.

Civil servants, including government officials, have accepted a 12.5 percent pay cut it was announced on 27 July.

Felix Anthony declared 2 August a Day for Peace, Democracy, and Law and Order endorsed by Fiji's civic groups (NGOs, church groups etc.) and more notably by private sector bosses, rare supporters of industrial action who refused to call the action 'general strike'. Fiji's Chamber of Commerce backed the action, saying it expected all businesses, schools, and government offices to remain closed.

Rebels briefly detained Anthony before the proposed day of action, and participation in the 2 August action was low profile in the capital Suva, though the Garment Manufacturers Association and Fiji Manufacturers Association supported the day and paid their workers. But in West Fiji (sugar and tourism area) no sugar mills rolled, and banks and other businesses were shut.

As a result of Fiji's political shenanigans the Finance Ministry is now expecting 15 percent 'negative growth' this year.