LABOUR START

[redstar2000]

This is a British site for trade-unionists...but features stories about workers' struggles from around the world -- with a strong emphasis on international solidarity.

LABOUR START (http://www.labourstart.org/)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[rebelworker]

Excellent site, or atleast the best o have found i n this timeof political inactivity from the labour movement....

But are you sure its British, im pretty sure its american, they are always advertising books on the american labour movemnt...

[cormacobear]

it is an international organization bsed out of England. There weekly e-mail updates include letter campaigns to free imprisoned Union orgaizers, and there daily news linksand radio station provide daily news relating to the labour movement in hundreds of countries.

[cormacobear]

NEPAL: TELL THE KING - FREE UNION LEADERS NOW

The ruler of Nepal, King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, claims to be a supporter
of democracy. Of course that did not prevent him from ending 14 years of
democracy last year, and more recently, arresting hundreds of dissidents.

He has now targeted trade unionists and his police have arrested a large number
of union leaders from different national federations. Among those still in jail
are the secretary general of GEFONT, other GEFONT leaders, and at least seven
leaders from the Nepal Trade Union Congress.

The unions in Nepal are asking all of us to take a moment and send off messages
of protest direct to the King. Please do so by clicking here:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidar...mpaign.cgi?c=72 (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=72)

***

INDONESIA: GROUP 4 SECURICOR TARGET OF GLOBAL CAMPAIGN

Last year, multinational giant Group 4 Securicor sacked some 200 Indonesian
workers, members of the ASPEK union, in a dispute over severance pay. The
company has not responded to repeated appeals, and the union is asking us once
more to flood the email inbox of company CEO Nick Buckles. The message we are
being asked to send is simple enough: respect the decisions of the Indonesian
authorities and settle the issues that precipitated the strike. Please take a
moment to send off your message to Nick Buckles now:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidar...mpaign.cgi?c=69 (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=69)

[emma_goldman]

Bad name.

Also the name of a temporary labor agency.

Great site though. ;)

[PRC-UTE]

In this week's mailing:

* Urgent appeal from Lebanese unions
* Online campaigns work! Reports from Indonesia and Costa Rica
* How to run successful health and safety campaigns

***

URGENT APPEAL FROM LEBANESE UNIONS

The Education International, representing teachers' unions around the
world, has issued an urgent action appeal in support of requests for
humanitarian assistance from two Lebanese teachers' unions. LabourStart
is assisting by providing a secure online way to donate in your own
currency using your credit or debit card. Please give generously today:

http://www.labourstart.org/docs/en/000351.html

***

ONLINE CAMPAIGNS WORK! REPORTS FROM INDONESIA AND COSTA RICA

Two recent LabourStart campaigns have already produced solid results for
workers:

In Indonesia, we ran a very large campaign in support of striking
security guards employed by Group 4 Securicor. Over 6,400 of you sent
off messages. That campaign has ended with a very big victory for the
workers -- who have returned to work and today received their back pay.
LabourStart has continuing coverage of this struggle here:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_ne...untry=Indonesia (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Indonesia)

Meanwhile, Albino Vargas, General Secretary of ANEP in Costa Rica, wrote
to us: "We were really impressed with so much solidarity; it was very
valuable, very timely and really raised our morale for continuing the
battle against this pernicious Central American Free Trade Agreement and
the neoliberal policies of President Oscar Arias Sanchez. For the time
being, things have quietened down. The most brutal anti-union attacks
from the far-right have stopped. The multi-million dollar pro-CAFTA
campaign has also stopped. It seems there is a kind of stand-off of pro-
and anti-CAFTA forces. However, we are sure that we will have to pursue
the struggle on the streets in the days ahead, so we would like all our
friends from all the organisations who've given us so much solidarity to
stay alert to news of the social struggle of the people of Costa Rica."

***

HOW TO RUN SUCCESSFUL HEALTH AND SAFETY CAMPAIGNS

The University of California Occupational Health Program has just
produced a book that everyone who is concerned with health and safety
issues will want. It's called "Tools of the Trade: A Health and Safety
Handbook for Action" and it includes examples of successful workplace
health and safety campaigns as well as strategies to actively engage
workers in advocating for their own protection. The book features
specific tools for winning safety improvements, such as collecting
information, using legal rights, and working with the community. It's
LabourStart's book of the week -- order your copies today:

http://www.labourstart.org/bookoftheweek

Make sure your union is running the LabourStart/Hazards health and
safety newswire with the very latest news on your websites. Full
details are here:

http://www.labourstart.org/docs/en/000077.html

Have a great weekend.

Eric Lee

[PRC-UTE]

In this week's mailing:

* Woolworths locks out 500 workers in bid to smash union
* Massive international support for Australian workers
* Everything you need to know about how a union works
* Labor/Labour Day

***

WOOLWORTHS LOCKS OUT 500 WORKERS IN BID TO SMASH UNION

Over 500 New Zealand union members working for a company owned by
Woolworths Australia have been locked out until they agree to abandon
their claim for a national collective agreement. This blatant attempt to
destroy a union is being carried out by a company boasting of a 24%
increase in profits. The union is calling for a big international
campaign to put pressure on the company and urging people to send off
protest messages today:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidar...paign.cgi?c=140 (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=140)

Please spread the word!

***

MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR AUSTRALIAN WORKERS

Three days ago we asked you to send off messages in support of the 107
Australian construction workers who are the first victims of the viciously
anti-union policies of the Howard government -- and you did, in your
thousands. In fact, within the first six hours, 1,000 messages were sent,
and thousands more since then. Many of you have also contributed money to
support the workers, who are facing massive fines amounting to tens of
thousands of dollars apiece. It's important that we keep up the pressure
and spread the word -- especially to construction workers around the world:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidar...paign.cgi?c=137 (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=137)

***

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW A UNION WORKS

Jim Hightower, the Texas populist author and activist, says that "The
Union Members Complete Guide" is "a book that works. Everything you need
to know about how a union works, from collecting dues to defending
members' rights, and how you can help make your union more successful at
the bargaining table and throughout your workplace."

The book is described as "an easy-to-read, thorough explanation of what
unions are, how they work, and the rights and responsibilities of
membership." It's the perfect Labour Day present (more on that below) and
it's our LabourStart book of the week this week:

http://www.labourstart.org/bookoftheweek

***

LABOR/LABOUR DAY

I want to take this opportunity to wish a very warm Labor/Labour Day to
our readers in North America.

While most of the world celebrates May 1st as the workers' holiday, there
is a tradition in the USA and Canada to commemorate the first Monday in
September this way. (Some Australian states and New Zealand have their
Labour Days in October.)

Interestingly, the Wikipedia covers the holiday with two separate articles
-- both worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day

So however you spell it, and whatever you call it, happy Labor/Labour Day
to all our readers!

Eric Lee

[PRC-UTE]

In this week's mailing:

* Iraqi union offices raided
* Air New Zealand faces "storm of outrage"
* International union rights

***

IRAQI UNION OFFICES RAIDED

Six days ago, US and Iraqi forces raided the head offices of the General
Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), the country's national trade union
center. They arrested one of the union's security staff (later released
unharmed), destroyed furniture, and confiscated a computer and fax
machine. And then they did it again two days later, causing further damage
to the union headquarters.

The union is condemning the attacks as unprovoked. It is calling on the
occupation forces to issue a written apology, to return all the seized
property, and to pay compensation for damages caused.

They are asking unions around the world to send messages of protest by
clicking here:

http://www.labourstart.org/iraqraid

***

AIR NEW ZEALAND FACES "STORM OF OUTRAGE"

The Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU) has released some highlights of
the many email exchanges that have taken place between Air New Zealand CEO
Rob Fyfe and the thousands of you who have written to him:

http://tinyurl.com/2nzhzq

The struggle continues.

***

International Union Rights

If you support the rights of working people everywhere to form free and
independent unions, you should be actively supporting the work of the
International Centre for Trade Union Rights (ICTUR). And you should be
reading their excellent quarterly magazine, "International Union Rights".
And you should have hanging in your office a copy of their huge,
full-color world map entitled "Freedom of Association: The protection of
trade union rights worldwide".

To get the map for free and to support the work of ICTUR (and
LabourStart), please take out a subscription to "International Union
Rights" today:

http://www.labourstart.org/ictur/

Thanks. And have a great weekend.

Eric Lee

[RASHskins]

That's wicked that the brirtish union's can expel BNP members.

[PRC-UTE]

In unions in different countries, we call each other by different names. Some
unions use the word 'comrade', others use 'colleague'. And many use the terms
'brother' and 'sister' to describe fellow union members.

Are we simply using these words because we always have, or do they still have any
real meaning?

I ask that question because in the last few days one of our brothers has been
brutally tortured and murdered, and another one, an innocent man, jailed.

In Mexico, Santiago Rafael Cruz, a 29-year-old union organizer from the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL-CIO) was brutally tortured and murdered. Santiago
was a successful organizer in the USA who had moved down to Mexico to run the
union's office there. His activities aroused the hostility of those who fear the
growth of trade unionism among farm workers, and generated attacks in the media,
threats of deportation, robberies and intimidation, culminating in this terrible
crime.

Santiago has a family in Mexico, a mother, father, sisters and brothers. But his
family is much larger than that; it includes all of us. We must grieve together
with his family, and we must fight together with them as one large family to ensure
that the Mexican government investigates the murder, arrests and prosecutes those
responsible, and ensures the safety of union activists in that country.

Please take a moment to send off your message today:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidar...paign.cgi?c=232 (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=232)

About the same time that union-hating murderers were ending the life of this
courageous young man in Mexico, on the other side of the world Iranian security
forces lured union activist Mahmoud Salehi into the local prosecutor's office on the
pretext of discussing plans for this year's May Day celebrations. Salehi, a former
president of the bakery workers' union in the city of Saqez, was then arrested and
put in jail for a year with a three year suspended sentence on top of that. His
crime was that in 2004 he organized a May Day demonstration.

Tell the Iranian authorities to release Mahmoud Salehi now, and to drop all charges.
Send off your message by clicking here:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidar...paign.cgi?c=231 (http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=231)

I doubt very much if Santiago and Mahmoud ever met -- and yet they are brothers.
One now languishing in an Iranian prison, the other in a Mexican grave.

If these two men were not just fellow trade union members but actually your
brothers, the sons of your mothers and fathers, how would you react? I know that
you wouldn't be silent -- you would be up in arms and the whole world would know
your anger and your pain.

Please pass this message on. Let's tell the Mexican and Iranian governments that we
in the international trade union movement are a single family, and we will not
tolerate our brothers and sisters being tortured, jailed or murdered anywhere in the
world.

Eric Lee