International unions

Trade union struggles outside the UK

Union rights: make Australian Labor fight!

Draft article for Workers' Liberty (Australia) no.38, by Bob Carnegie and Martin Thomas This year, John Howard plans to bring in anti-union legislation more drastic than former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ever attempted in one instalment, and arguably more drastic than the sum total of the whole long series of laws introduced by Thatcher's government through the 1980s. It is an attempt to change the balance of class forces radically and suddenly - to set in train a process which will transfer most workers to individual non-union contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements, AWAs) in...

South African strike wave

South Africa is undergoing a strike wave, the second in a matter of months, with miners, municipal workers and civil servants about to take strike action. This follows stoppages in recent weeks by urban workers, grocery clerks and airline workers. Around 80,000 gold miners came out on Sunday 7 August, the first strike organised by the National Union of Mineworkers in gold mines in 18 years. On Monday 8 August the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) began another strike for higher wages. It wants 8%, while employers have imposed a 6% increase. Workers in in waste disposal, roads...

Argentinian workers strike for higher pay

Argentinian rail workers joined health workers, dockers and others in a 24-hour strike on Thursday 28 July, demanding higher pay. Rail union reps said that after the failure of negotiations for over 100 days they decided to strike. They also warned that if there is no agreement in a week, they will escalate the action to 36 hours, with a 48 hour strike the following week. The capital Buenos Aires came to a standstill, with buses also disrupted. Only the tube system carried on running. Health workers were also out on a 72 hour strike. Pay in their sector has been frozen for almost fifteen years...

Miners demand pension rights

On 26 July eight thousand miners from Silesia (south-west Poland) demonstrated in front of the parliament building in the Warsaw. Members of all 13 miners’ trade unions demanded pensions rights for miners after 25 years work, regardless of their age. The miners do not want to accept a normal pension age (65) because it would mean working until their death. (The life expectancy of a Polish miner is 64.) In front of the parliament building a violent struggle took place. The police used the tear gas and the water cannons. The miners threw paving stones at the police. Seven miners were injured as...

US union split will not bring class politics

Jim Byagua reports on the 2005 conventon of the AFL-CIO, the United States’ trade union federation. The AFL-CIO convention, which took place in Chicago on 25-8 July, was witness to two important developments. One concerned the split in the American labour movement, the other, the US occupation of Iraq. Four of the biggest affiliated unions — SEIU service employees, UFCW food and commercial workers, UNITE HERE textile, hospitality and retail workers and the Teamsters — boycotted the event. Two unions, LIUNA laborers and UFWA farm workers, did attend, but are working with the boycotters as well...

Campaign to release Borhan Dyvargar and other worker activists in Iranian Kurdistan

Safety of Borhan Dyvargar now causing grave concern. Please act now!

We have recently received the following communications via the Worker Communist Party of Iran- Hekmatist

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Borhan Dyvargar and all the recently arrested people have to be released immediately!
To: All Unions, worker organizations, progressive and human rights organizations.

Based on the recived information, Borhan Dyvangar a well known activist in the worker movement has been arrested by the Islamic republic of Iran’s intelligence police on Sunday 7.Aug. 2005 in the city of Saqz. His imprisonment is the follow-up of the recent one thousand individual arrests from the province of Kurdistan.

Borhan a member of the investigation committee for establishing worker organizations and one of the founders of the general organization for the unemployed and also the director of the Association of Defending Children’s Rights in the city of Saqz. Borhan is also the administrator for the website www.tashakol.com. Furthermore, he was one of the speakers at the May Day celebration in the cities of Tehran and Saqz in 2004 and 2005. Borhan was once before arrested along with 6 other organizers during the May Day celebration in 2004. The authorities of the Islamic republic of Iran were unable to prove the unfounded accusations in their 'courts of justice'.

On the day of the general strike in Kurdistan, once again the Islamic republic’s forces invaded Borhan’s residence and in addition to terrifying Borhan’s family they also arrested him and confiscated his computer and his personal belonging.

On the morning of the same day he was taken to court for a hearing of the accusations against him. The Islamic republic authorities stated that Borhan has been arrested for being a member of the investigation committee of free worker organizations; also, establishing the organization for the unemployed workers, and administrating a website for the workers. In addition he was accused of spreading propaganda, encouraging people to participate in a general strike in Kurdestan. Anyone will agree that the accusations declare against Borhan by the Islamic regime is the basic and fundamental rights of any citizen within any society; but Islamic republic has prohibited these rights for all the people in Iran. In this way, the accusations proclaimed against Borhan Dyvangar are groundless. Furthermore, Borhan's life is in imminent danger. Therefore, this is a call of support to every union, worker organizations, and progressive left organizations and individuals, to pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran in their unique ways for releasing Borhan Dyvangar and all the arrested people from the recent events. I hope you will take urgent actions as a part of your immediate agenda.

With regards,
Rahman Hosain Zadeh
Assistance Director of the Worker Communist Party of Iran- Hekmatist

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I am requesting for the immediate release of my husband, Borhan Dyvargar

To Guy Rider, the respectful director of the Free Workers Union
To Amnesty International
To all Workers Unions and all the Human Rights Organizations

In this way I am announcing that my husband, Borhan Dyvargar, has been arrested by Islamic republic of Iran’s intelligent forces, without any legal permission, at 2:00am on Sunday night, the 7th of August. Furthermore, Borhan was taken to the court on the same day. Since then I have no information concerning him. Borhan is a prominent member of the Bakers syndicate whom was arrested along with 6 other organizers on may 2004 for organizing the May Day workers celebration on the International Workers Day. The hearing for Borhan and the other 6 organizers of the International Workers Day has been on ongoing bases for a year and a half and is still continuing. The Intelligence forces did not wait for the court verdict from the previous arrest and in the middle of the night they invaded in to our residence and detained him once again. Borhan is one of the activists of the investigation committee for establishing worker organizations and one of the founders of the organization for the unemployed workers; also he is the secretary of the Society in Defense of Children’s Rights in the city of Saqz.

In the past few days I have asked the authorities of Islamic republic to visit my husband but I have not received any reply to my request. I am three weeks away from going into labor; the Islamic republic’s forces invaded my residence late at night and in front of me and my child’s fearful eyes apprehended my husband. This was not enough for the Islamic forces; in addition to his arrest, they confiscated my husband’s computer, floppy disks and all his documents of the Association for Defending Children’s Rights.

Borhan’s “crimes” are defending his own right as a worker, defending humanity, defending children and struggle against oppression of children. Arresting and imprisonment of Borhan is against the law, and also against human rights and I strongly condemn this act. Also the Islamic republic’s authorities are responsible for Borhan’s life and any damage from this shock that has been put on my child and injuries that my fetus and I have received from this shock. Now I request help from you and those who hear my voice to save my husband’s life and support my children and myself.

With regards,
Maryam Axzarpour
09. Aug. 2005

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Workers' News Round-Up

News from working-class struggles across the world. India Half a million Indian tea workers are on indefinite strike demanding better wages and conditions. The strike has stopped work in the West Bengal’s 350 tea plantations, including in the famous hill district of Darjeeling for more than a week. Tea workers’ unions say they will not accept the productivity-linked wages that the Indian Tea Association has demanded. Unions want the daily wage rate in Bengal to be doubled and other bonuses paid. Workers are also planning road blockades on the highway that connects India's north-eastern states...

Free the Eritrean trade unionists!

Activists from the GMB and No Sweat protested outside the Eritrean Embassy in north London on 14 July in defence of three jailed Eritrean trade union leaders. Tewelde Ghebremedhin (chair of the Food Workers Federation), Minase Andezion (secretary of the textile workers' federation) and Habtom Weldemicael (leader of the Coca-Cola Workers Union) have been detained without trial or charges. The labour movement campaign internationally is being co-ordinated by the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF). To help the campaign to release these men, download the petition and factsheet from www...

The "coolie nation" and the feminisation of poverty

Dita Sari, a leading socialist, trade unionist and anti-sweatshop activist in Indonesia, looks at how women and migrant workers are faring in Indonesia today. For some time now, the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have been experiencing what is referred to as the feminisation of poverty. For centuries, colonialism encouraged backwardness in technological and human resources, inequality and a poor quality of life. Capitalism, which on the one hand opened the door to liberation and cultural enlightenment for women, at the same time exploits them. In the past and now, women are the...

Ecuador: banana workers strike

Banana workers in Ecuador are continuing with strike action to defend their right to organise, in the teeth of repression. The National Federation of Agricultural Industry Workers, Farmers and Indigenous People of Ecuador (FENACLE) is calling for international solidarity. Workers were attacked on two separate plantations in May whilst striking. At the San José plantation in the Guayas province, workers went on strike after 44 of them were sacked when they formed a union and presented a list of demands to their employer. Police broke down doors and attacked workers with tear-gas. And workers at...

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