Paul NowakYesterday trade unionists around the world (and for the first time, the British government) commemorated Workers’ Memorial Day.
This dreadful story is a reminder as to why we should all, ‘Remember the Dead, Fight for the Living’.
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Nice article at The Sauce (hat-tip RMT magazine), exploring the links between Mrs Justice Sharp, (the Judge who awarded Network Rail an injunction against the RMT), the private equity industry and Network Rail.
No allegation or suggestion of impropiety, but as The Sauce comments it does raise questions about,
“…the closeness of the British judicial system to major corporate interests – a relationship which deserves greater scrutiny when strike action is barred by the High Court.”
It’s a small (corporate) world after all!
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Members of the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) have won a long-running campaign against Covanta, the energy-from-waste multinational that has been trying to break into the UK and Dutch markets recently, and British unions are proud to have played our part in solidarity. Despite a vicious campaign against the union, Covanta faced numerous legal challenges to their behaviour, and an international campaign to force them to deal with the union. And we’ve won!
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Lots of union activists will be in election mode for the next 16 days – working day and night and all the bits in-between, knocking on doors, telecanvassing and handing out leaflets.
But in the midst of election fever its important to remember that whatever the outcome of the election, unions will have their work to cut out to make sure that the issues that matter to our members and their families are high on the political agenda long after the posters have faded.
That’s why on July 5 the TUC will be hosting a one-day conference looking at how best unions can respond to the post-election environment, and crucially how we step up our organising and campaigning efforts in the months and years ahead. You can read more about the event, and register to attend, here.
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The industrial dispute in California that I blogged about this afternoon can now be pursued online. The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) has issued a call to email protests to Rio Tinto between the London AGM of the company on 15 April and the Melbourne AGM a week later. Take a few seconds to send the company an online protest letter, and encourage your friends and workmates to do likewise. You can also send a solidarity message to the workers’ union.
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The ILWU, a US union, is working with Unite, ITF and ICEM to protest at the AGM of British-based multinational mining company Rio Tinto from 10am on Thursday 15 April (at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster) about the lockout at the Borate mine in Southern California, which began on 31 January. 570 workers were locked out for opposing a plan to change decent jobs into temporary, part-time or outsourced work. Please join the demonstration and see our briefing note. Rio Tinto claim that they are being forced into this by the global crisis, but the briefing note explains that this argument is just a pretext for replacing decent work with exploitation. If Rio Tinto get away with this, it could encourage other employers to do the same, so, as ever, supporting the Borate mine workers is basic solidarity. Defending their rights is part of defending ours.
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Imagine that no one in your workplace has been paid overtime since 2007, and that all new jobs coming up are being filled by your boss’s family. You present a collective complaint to management. You show up at work the next day to learn that the company are transferring you to its equivalent of the Vladivostok office.
Owen Tudor
