DEMOCRACY VIA THE ARMY? I DON'T THINK SO!!

       At the time of the "Arab Spring" in Egypt I wrote up a little post stating that if the Egyptian peole are relying on the army to deliver democracy, they will be sorely disappointed. Think of the authoritarian regime with all its cronies discussing the control of the country with all those high ranking officers, they would be discussing crackdowns and surveillance, and imprisonment of the opposition. Then suddenly when the people rise up, the top ranking military are there defending democracy, it doesn't happen. They are all buddies in the same gang. The army by its structure is an authoritarian machine, democarcy is an anathema to its top brass, they live by power and authority.

To prove a point, this from Labour Start.

        Kamal Abbas, a leading figure in the fight to create independent democratic trade unions in Egypt, has been sentenced to six months in prison for the "crime" of insulting a Mubarak-era hack at an International Labor Organization conference. Abbas is used to such treatment at the hands of the Mubarak regime, which jailed him and tried to crush the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS) which he headed. But the Mubarak era is supposed to be behind us. After all, we are now one year into the Arab Spring.
       The world's trade unions are calling for a massive online mobilization to demand that the charges be dropped.

Please take a moment to click here and then spread the word.

Thank you!

Eric Lee

ann arky's home.

AN INJURY TO ONE---!!!

     The struggle is global.  An appeal from IUF.

      Grenada, an island in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, can be heaven for tourists but Grenada Breweries Company turned it into a hell for workers as 125 of them were locked out just before the Christmas on December 19, 2011.

CLICK HERE to send a message to Grenada Breweries Company telling them to stop violating workers' rights and end the lockout!

For more information, read the full story here.

NEW IUF News Service!

Click here to subscribe to the new IUF News Service

Ron Oswald
General Secretary, IUF

International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

8, rampe du Pont-Rouge
1213 Petit Lancy, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 793 22 33
Fax: +41 22 793 22 38
web-site: www.iuf.org

ann arky's home.

THE STRUGGLE IS GLOBAL.

        An appeal and a thank-you from Labour Start:

        Members of the Mexican electrical workers union have been engaged in a heroic struggle that began more than two years ago -- and today they need our help. Despite being evicted from their workplaces by police and military in 2009, they continued their resistance and today are negotiating with the government on a just solution.

But they need our help -- the support of trade union members from around the world.

      Sending your message to the Mexican government and the union will take you less than a minute -- please do so now - click here.

        Please spread the word inside your union, to your workmates, friends and family -- and share the campaign via these social media sites:        

       Meanwhile, thanks to the more than 7,600 of you who responded to last week's appeal in support of jailed trade union leaders in Greece. The trial began on Tuesday and the union leaders have thanked all of you for your support. But we need more messages before it resumes next week, so if you've not yet sent off a message, please do so now - click here.

        Finally, it's a new year and we're relaunching our partnership with UCS - the unionised bookshop - to promote books by and for trade unionists. This month, I'd like to urge all of you to have a look at Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. If you've never heard of Mother Jones, you're in for a real treat. And remember that every book you purchase using this link helps to support LabourStart.
Have a great weekend.

Eric Lee

ann arky's home.

SOLIDARITY WORKS.

       Those how took part in the campaign for the realse of the two trade union leaders in Fiji, will be delighted to know and should feel proud, that they have been released. Solidarity works, direct action and solidarity the keystones to changing the world. 

From Labour Start;

     Less than 24 hours after we launched a publicity blitz in support of our online campaign demanding the release of the two jailed trade union leaders from Fiji (pictured above), they have both been released. That campaign is now over.
      There is still much work to be done regarding Fiji - it is still a military dictatorship which doesn't respect workers' rights. But it is still a victory - for us, for Felix and Daniel, and for the international trade union movement.
       Online campaigns work! Please make sure to visit http://www.labourstart.org/actnowen.shtml and sign up to any campaigns you've not yet supported. And spread the word in your union.

 And while we're celebrating - three more things you should know:

SOLIDARITY.

Korea's Hanjin workers - also the subject of a big LabourStart campaign earlier this year - have now won a victory. We'll have lots more coverage in the next few hours and days, but here's one report.

Are pineapples's an "ethical" fruit? Read about Make Fruit Fair's online campaign in support of workers rights in Costa Rica.

Finally, it's Monica's birthday on Monday. Who's Monica and why should you care? Click here.

Thanks!
Eric Lee

ann arky's home.

THE STATE AND ITS HATERD OF UNIONS.

The trial of the leader of the Fiji Trades Union Congress

 is due to start this week.

SOLIDARITY.

         Fiji's military government has dramatically stepped up its harassment of trade unionists. Recently FTUC President Daniel Urai was arrested for holding an ‘illegal’ meeting, and his trial is due to start on 2 September. Meetings of the FTUC itself have also been prevented. Fiji has been under a military dictatorship since 2006, as a result of which Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum. The European Union has also suspended overseas aid payments to the regime. Leaders and activists of the Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) have been assaulted or detained on several occasions. In February, Felix Anthony, General Secretary of the FTUC and of the Sugar Workers’ Union affiliated to the ITF and the IUF was taken from home by three uniformed military officers and subjected to threats. His family including children were also threatened. A new government decree issued on 29 July will, 'effectively abolish all trade unions in Fiji', according to the FTUC. Fiji has ratified the two relevant core ILO Conventions - Convention 98(1974) and Convention 87 (2002) and is obliged to observe the workers' rights enshrined in them. Moreover, as a member state of the ILO, the Government of Fiji has an obligation to adhere to the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted by the ILO in 1998.

An appeal from LabourStart.

       The trade unions of the Pacific island nation of Fiji are under attack. Please take a moment to join thousands of other trade unionists from around the world to send your message of protest:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=1086
Please spread the word by email, on Facebook, and elsewhere.
This is extremely urgent.
Thank you!

ann arky's home.

THE TORTURE OF TRADE UNIONISTS.

     

      As we here in the West struggle with the repression and exploitation inflicted on us by corporate capitalism, let's not forget those in the developing world who suffer  far more harsh exploitation and a far more brutal repression, sometimes even death for doing what we do,  fight for a better life. This brutality takes place on a daily basis across countless countries, below is just one more of this sickening onslaught against ordinary people, another case of brutal repression to safeguard the wealth and power of that toxic, festering marriage of state and corporate capitalism.

Solidarity.

       Basile Mahan Gahé, general secretary of the national trade union center Dignité (whose food and hotel section is affiliated to the IUF) has been transferred from detention in Abidjan to a prison in Boundiali, where he is reportedly only given one meal a day. The trade union leader was kidnapped from his Abidjan home on May 26 and held without charges. Amnesty International believes it has credible reports that he was tortured, particularly in the early days of his detention.

       On June 2, he was visited by an ILO mission which included Mody Guiro, ITUC African regional president/ITUC vice-president. For the mission, Gahé was transferred from his police cell to the Hotel Pergola (transformed into a detention center). The mission over, the prosecutor brought charges - reportedly involving sedition and armed action against the state. - and had him transferred on July 9 to the remote location in the northeast.

We all need a hand.

      Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara has repeatedly called for national reconciliation - yet a trade union leader is being illegally held without charges. All of the country's trade union organizations, other national and international trade union organizations have called for his release. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner at risk of torture.

       Act now! - click here to send a message to President Ouattara (with copies to Ivory Coast embassies in France and Belgium) calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Basile Mahan Gahé.

Ron Oswald.

General Secretary, IUF.

International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

8, rampe du Pont-Rouge
1213 Petit Lancy, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 793 22 33
Fax: +41 22 793 22 38
web-site: http://www.iuf.org/

ann arky's home.

FREE ROSALBA TORO.

      Across the goble ordinary people are imprisoned, tortured and sometinmes killed and their crime, -trying to improve the living conditions of their people while living and working under a repressive regime. We must always stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who find themselves in this type of situation. The following is an appeal from Labour Start on just one such case. Please show your support HERE.

Colombia: Free jailed trade unionist Rosalba Gaviria Toro

       On 9th March 2009 Rosalba Gaviria Toro, a member of FENSUAGRO, the Colombian Agricultural Workers' Trade Union was detained and accused of 'rebellion'. She has been imprisoned since then in Villa Cristina jail in the city of Armenia, without being convicted of any crime. Rosalba has been an active trade unionist and human rights activist for many years, however, the Colombian authorities have described her as a 'terrorist' - jeopardizing her right to a fair judicial process. There is no legitimate evidence against Rosalba and it would seem that, like so many other political prisoners in Colombia, she has been jailed to silence her and prevent her from carrying out her legitimate work in defense of trade union and human rights.

ann arky's home.

500 STRIKERS ARRESTED.

         This post from LabourStart should be acted on by as many as people as possible across the world. If India as one of the worlds largest industrial areas can lock up strikers without a murmer from the rest of the world it will become the pattern. Workers conditions in the developing countries are poor to say the least, to be imprisoned for struggling to improve them must be seen as a crime. Of course history tells us, that is the way capitalism works, in partnership with the state.

 

        The arrest of one worker whose only crime was to go on strike -- that's reason enough to get angry, and to protest and campaign. But what do you do when 500 workers are arrested?

That's the situation today in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where some 500 workers have been jailed following their strike against electronics manufacturer Foxconn.

That name should ring a bell -- Foxconn's Chinese factories were the scene of a series of worker suicides earlier this year.

In the next few hours and days, we need to flood the offices of state officials with the demand that all the jailed workers be released.

Please do two things right now:

Send off your message HERE
Spread the word in your union -- let's mobilize thousands in support of this campaign! 

Thanks - and have a great weekend.   Eric Lee  LabourStart.

ann arky's home.