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Owen Tudor

Owen Tudor

I’ve been the Head of the TUC’s European Union and International Relations Department since 2003 and have worked at the TUC since 1984. I’ve been a member of the Health and Safety Commission, the Civil Justice Council, the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council and now I’m on the Wilton Park Advisory Council. I’m particularly interested in the trade union movements of Australia, Iran and Iraq, the Middle East and the USA, and I’m interested in migration, trade, and building trade union capacity. I’m the Secretary of TUC Aid, the TUC’s charitable union development arm and on the Robin Hood Tax campaign steering committee.

http://www.tuc.org.uk/international

  • Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    So that’s what Republican Governor Walker is up to…..

    May 9 Recall Walker unity rally. Photo: Wisconsin AFLCIO

    I just had to post about this latest revelation from our colleagues in the US trade union movement. Scott Walker, the Republican Governor of Wisconsin, has started a firestorm by abolishing public sector workers’ collective bargaining rights. It has split the state and unions have run a fantastic campaign to recall him which we have covered before. Governor Walker claimed that he took this step to save the state money, a claim that unions always doubted. Now the truth is out, with a video of Governor Walker telling a billionaire funder that his plan is actually to turn Wisconsin into a ‘right-to-work’ (ie non-union) state.

    Yup, he really is just out to get unions. Good luck to the Wisconsin AFLCIO in their efforts to make sure he fails.

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    Posted on May 14th, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

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    Amnesty and TUC call for Iranian union freedom

    The TUC has joined a global campaign launched by Amnesty International to focus on other Iranian trade unionists now that Mansour Ossanloo and Ebrahim Madadi are out of jail. Building on their release over the last twelve months, we are now encouraging trade unionists to write to the Iranian authorities demanding freedom for Reza Shahabi and Zabihollah Bagheri.

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    Posted on May 13th, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

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    International Workers’ Day 2012: resistance is growing

    London May Day marchers

    Marchers at London's May Day march, 1 May 2012

    The ITUC chose the eve of May Day -  international workers’ day – to launch its new enquiry into the impact of the global financial crisis on workers’ rights around the world. Former head of the South African trade union movement Jay Naidoo, former Portuguese Labour Minister and ETUC Deputy General Secretary Maria Helena Andre and the former Prime Minister of Denmark Poul Nyrup Rasmussen will be on the enquiry panel. They will investigate at first hand how the crisis has impacted on workers and their unions in Bulgaria, Greece, Indonesia, Mexico, Portugal and Romania, where the right-wing Government was toppled last week because of its economic and social policies.

    This enquiry is part of the growing resistance of workers and unions around the world to austerity policies which often target not only public services and public spending, but workers’  wages (pay and social benefits).

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    Posted on May 1st, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

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    Hasan free – union campaigns work

    It’s always good to know when a campaign works, and feedback on campaigns we’ve run. So, here from LabourStart is an update on the campaign to get Kosovan metalworker trade union leader Hasan Abazi out of a Serbian jail. Key point: Hasan is back home.

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    Posted on April 23rd, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

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    US union video: dignity and respect at work or CEO mega-bonuses?

    Here’s a great video from the US Transport Workers Union, part of their campaign against worse terms and conditions at American Airlines and American Eagle, whose parent company has filed for bankruptcy. It contrasts the commitment that workers give to their job with the rewards they – and management – receive, emphasising a dignity of labour/respect at work agenda. TUC surveys over the years find that – although we all grumble about our jobs and our employers – most workers are proud of the work they do, and want their employer to demonstrate the same about them. So, does this video work? Is it the sort of thing that UK unions should be doing?

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    Posted on April 17th, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Union campaigns

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    Iran tries again to silence workers’ voices

    Reza Shahabi

    UPDATE: 19 April – Ebrahim Madadi (mentioned below) has been released at the end of his jail term.

    Reza Shahabi, Treasurer of the Vahed bus workers’ syndicate (union) in Tehran, and a bus worker himself, has been jailed for six years after nearly two years of harassment and imprisonment by the authorities in Iran. As usual, the sentence was handed down not by the usual criminal or civil courts, but by by Judge Salavati in Branch 15 of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court, which is not bound by the usual rules of evidence or proof. This sentence includes a year’s prison sentence on charges of “propaganda activities against the system” and five years in prison on charges of “conspiracy with the intention of acting against national security”.

    The true nature of the ‘offence’ Reza has been punished for is revelead by the fact that in addition to his prison term, Reza has been prohibited from all union activities for a further five years. The Iranian regime is hell-bent on ensuring that workers have no independent voice, despite the regime’s claim to uphold the workers’ rights laid down by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Global unions will be pressing for the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards to hear a case against the Iranian government over freedom of association this June.

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    Posted on April 17th, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

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    New Swazi trade union deregistered: suspend Swaziland now!

    Ahead of a day of action by Swazi democrats and trade unionists on 12 April, the TUC has joined international trade union protests – organised by the ITUC – at the deregistration of the newly merged Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), which held its founding conference only a month ago. General Secretary Brendan Barber has protested to the Swazi High Commissioner in London, as well as to the Commonwealth Secretary General, reiterating the Commonwealth Trade Union Group’s demand that Swaziland be suspended from the Commonwealth for human and trade union rights abuses.

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    Posted on April 7th, 2012 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity