International unions

The Colombian army has assassinated three members of the agricultural workers trade union FENSUAGRO, from the town of San Juan de Sumapaz on the outskirts of the Colombian capital Bogotá. On 18 March the men were travelling to another town to inspect some cattle, when they went missing. Some days later the Colombia media reported that the army had killed three guerrillas in the area and, on 27 March the families of the three men identified their bodies. The army’s claim the men were guerrillas is the same claim they made last year when they assassinated three senior trade union leaders in the...

Around 160,000 members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions took industrial and protest action on 1 April. Some 120,000 workers at 231 workplaces struck for four hours. The protest was over two new laws which the KCTU argue will clear the way for accelerated casualisation of Korea’s workforce. Some 60% of all Korean workers are now employed on “temporary” or “irregular” contracts. KCTU unions are using their bargaining strength at plant level to gain regular status for casual employees. Last year, unions at the Coca-Cola Korea Bottling Company were successful in contract negotiations to...

Jim Byagua reports on debates in the US trade union movement about the role to be played by restructuring in their revival. The article will have a resonance for trade unionists concerned about the proposed “super union” in the UK. Union membership [in the US] has fallen to 12.5% nationally, and to 7.9% in the private sector, leading to proposals to restructure and revitalise the US labour movement. This is in the run-up to the convention of the US union federation AFL-CIO in July, and to the vote for President of the AFL-CIO. This debate — a debate about the future of unions in the US — is...

On 11 April a group of women organised a demonstration outside Pakistan’s national parliament. They were protesting against a violent attack on female runners a week earlier. On 3 April groups of Pakistani Islamists threw petrol bombs near to a mini-marathon involving women runners. Feminist activists and democrats in Pakistan are increasingly dismayed by the government's inability and unwillingness to deal with violence and intimidation by the Islamists. Pakistan’s government is controlled by its President, General Pervez Musharraf The actual head of government, the Prime Minister, is a close...

Evangelina Argueta comes from the Central General de Trabajadores in Honduras and co-ordinates a project to organise the workers in the maquilas — factories which assemble goods for export. The maquilas are found in Mexico and Central America. They offer cheap labour, few labour or environmental regulations and low taxes. Products include clothes, electronic products and car parts. In Honduras 127,000 workers are employed in this sector.

News from working-class movements around the world. EUROPE Around 75,000 people marched in Brussels on 19 March calling for a stronger social Europe, with more and better jobs, and protesting against the neo-liberal Bolkestein directive. The Bolkestein or Services directive would mean that companies could effectively choose which European country’s laws to follow and whose enforcement regime to abide by. Large delegations came from France and Germany, and smaller delegations from other European Union countries. The demonstration was called by the European TUC (ETUC) trade union federation. The...

Message from the French union CGT Maxi-Livres and the Stop Précarité network concerning Latifa Abed, a courageous trade unionist being sued for defamation by her employer. Please give Latifa moral support by sending a message to one of the links below. Latifa Abed, an employee of Maxi-Livres at the Gare de Lyon [station] in Paris, a CGT union delegate and member of the Stop Précarité network, is due to appear before the Correctional Tribunal of Paris on Tuesday 29 March to answer the charge of “complicity” with Jean-Paul Cluzel, the chair of Radio France, for words described by her employer as...

In June 1905 the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded. Delegates from America’s most militant unions and workers’ organisations came together in Chicago to discuss the foundation of the “one big union”, an “industrial union”, organising all workers. The “Wobblies”, as the organisation became known, aimed to break down all the barriers between workers of craft and tradition put up by right-wing labour bureaucrats. It was especially successful in organising casual, itinerant and temporary workers, whom the conservative craft unions spurned. Its experience there deserves study today...

South African trade unionists picketed the Zimbabwe border last week to demand democratic and labour reforms ahead of Zimbabwe’s 31 March parliamentary elections. Members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) gathered close to the border calling for solidarity with Zimbabwe's labour movement, which is increasingly restricted by security laws imposed by Mugabe's government. COSATU accuses the Zimbabwean government of human rights abuses and says the elections will not be free and fair. Two COSATU delegations have been expelled from Zimbabwe over the past year, most recently in...

Workers at the Zanon factory in Argentina are appealing for solidarity after a series of attacks by thugs. The Argentina Solidarity Campaign reports that in February the wife of a Zanon worker was abducted by four men and suffered a beating and verbal threats before being released to “give the union the message”. This is not an isolated event — there have been threats against a judge who is acting in the case of Pepe Alveal, a young Zanon worker who lost his left eye as a result of police violence during an unemployment organisation meeting last October. Alejandro Gómez and Raúl Godoy...