I’ve commented so often on what’s wrong with the last feudal dictatorship in Africa – the kingdom of Swaziland – that I often think nothing more can shock me. Whether it’s jailing a newspaper editor and a union lawyer for questioning the decisions of the courts, or the Prime Minister threatening to throttle the leader…
Yesterday the TUC signed a new co-operation protocol to help Portuguese-speaking migrant workers in the UK with CGTP-IN (one of Portugal’s equivalents of the TUC). The new protocol was signed by the TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady and CGTP-IN General Secretary Armenio Carlos, who travelled to London for the signing event at Congress House. The TUC has worked closely with…
Andy Hall is a British migrant workers’ rights defender active in Thailand for many years – we’ve covered his work and the attacks on him before. On Tuesday 2 September, he goes on trial in Thailand, accused of criminal libel by the Natural Fruit Company, a pineapple producer whose abusive treatment of Burmese migrants Andy…
Yesterday, the World Health Organization called for a ban on the use of e-cigarettes indoors, as well as a range of other restrictions on their sale and marketing. The UK Government has instantly, and predictably, rejected the proposal. E-cigarettes can be a dilemma for trade union representatives with many seeing them as a safer alternative to…
Earlier this month, a group of some of the most influential thinkers in global civil society wrote an open letter to their fellow NGO leaders. One of them, Danny Sriskandarajah, wrote about the letter in the Guardian shortly afterwards. They asked whether the growing – possibly now gargantuan – NGO movement has lost its way. Danny…
A British University operating in Qatar is under fire for ignoring the rights and conditions of workers providing it with essential services. University College London (UCL), angered those campaigning for rights for Qatar’s vast migrant workforce, including the University & College Union (UCU), when it said it would be “inappropriate” for them to review the…
Ecuadorian Trade Unionists are being locked up for criticising their Government, as the International TUC is reporting. While Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, is no stranger to controversy, he is showing a concerning unwillingness for those controversies to be aired in his own country. Correa has had some high-profile domestic adventures, not least an apparent coup…