Global solidarity

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.

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

Owen Tudor

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.

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

Owen Tudor

International Workers’ Day 2012: resistance is growing

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).

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

Owen Tudor

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.

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

Tony Burke

Rio Tinto Workers Campaign to Get Rio Tinto ‘Off the Olympic Podium’

Off The Podium Members of the United Steelworkers from Canada are in London this week to protest at an on-going lock out by mining and metals giant Rio Tinto in Alma, Canada.

As part of the campaign they are calling on on the International Olympic Committee to recast London 2012 gold medals because Rio Tinto disrespects the Olympic values of fair play.

Posted on April 17th, 2012 by Tony Burke filed under: Global solidarity

Owen Tudor

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.

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

Owen Tudor

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.

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