As in previous post which i deleted by mistake and can’t seem to embed the video again (must be having one of those days), the youth wing of German union IG Metall is waging a nationwide campaign to demand steady jobs for youth who finish their apprenticeships, who now risk becoming unemployed. To see the youtube footage of the campaign go to the link here, this youtube clip is particularly good, quite arty, nice use of shadows etc youth

I am really pleased to see the use of youtube for campaigns such as this and look forward to seeing more, if you know of any good clips let me know. Many of you know about the film course that we have been running, but here are details again union-professionals-new-dates

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Posted on March 9th, 2009 by Anna filed under: Union news

Well if the answer is yes then these sites maybe useful for you. There are some great animated clips that help to explain all of these concepts.

www.commoncraft.com/twitter

www.commoncraft.com/rss

www.commoncraft.com/video-social-network

www.commoncraft.com/blogs

 The RSS feed clip shows you how to save time reading websites; another the microblogging service twitter; one gives a short introduction to the concepts behind social networking sites (such as facebook); and another gives a short introduction to blogs and how they work and why they matter. 

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a clip about how trade unions work? Anybody up for the challenge?

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Posted on March 9th, 2009 by Anna filed under: Union news

• Speak out and you could be blacklisted
  Gregor Gall article on the blacklisting scandal
  (tags: organising unions union busting)
• TUC on blacklisting
  Follow up to Paul's earlier post on the blacklisting of union activists
  (tags: organising blacklisting unions)

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Posted on March 6th, 2009 by StrongerUnions filed under: Web links

Ten years ago the Government passed legislation on ‘blacklisting’ – legislation designed to prevent union activists being victimised by potential employers. Unfortunately the legislation was never implemented because….

 ”there was no hard evidence that blacklisting was occurring”

Today, as reported in The Guardian, the information commisioner has published a list of companies he believes may have been ’misusing’ data to ‘blacklist’ union activists. The database seized by the information commissioner contains details of over 3000 construction workers and was used by over 40 companies, some of them key players within the industry.

Surely Government now has the evidence it needs to implement the legislation it passed 10 years ago?

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Posted on March 6th, 2009 by Paul Nowak filed under: Union organising, Union reps

• National minimum wage
  (tags: minimum wage unions tuc)

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Posted on March 5th, 2009 by StrongerUnions filed under: Web links

Last Saturday and Sunday 10 young members from TSSA, Unison, PCS and NUT as well as a representative of Westminster Uni Students Union attended the TUC Activist Academy special ‘GET ON THE BUS’ to the G20 weekend school at Ruskin College.

The school was designed to maximise trade union participation in the PUT PEOPLE FIRST march which is taking place in London on March 28th.

During the weekend, the group learnt more about the issues behind the G20 summit and the march and the policy platform agreed by trade unions and a host of other organisations.  Using this information, they linked it to the issues that their members were concerned about to plan awareness raising events in the workplace and how they could persuade as many members as possible to get down to London on the 28th.  During the march, they will be filming their experiences as part of a special project and to help them with this they also got some training in making short films whilst they were at Ruskin.

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Posted on March 2nd, 2009 by Carl Roper filed under: Union news, Union organising

I’m in Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan) for a TUC workshop for Iraqi and Kurdish trade unionists, and Iraqi Teachers’ Union President Jasim al-Lami has reported an astounding attack on his union’s leadership by the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi Government has proved itself time and time again to be hostile to free trade unionism, and has been censured by the ILO for its restrictive use of Saddam Hussein’s labour laws. Now it has demanded that the leadership of the Iraqi Teachers Union – a well organised union with hundreds of thousands of members, which has taken strike action to secure significant pay increases in recent years – hand over the keys to its headquarters along with membership and other records. The Government wants to force elections on the union (which has already held two leadership elections since 2003), and has told Jasim and his colleagues that they aren’t allowed to stand. If they refuse to do what the Government has told them, they have been threatened with prison terms of 3-5 years, despite having broken no laws. Jasim was jailed in Abu Ghraib for 6 years under Saddam. He says he is willing to go to jail again to defend his union. To protest, see www.labourstart.org

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Posted on March 2nd, 2009 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity