Solidarity 050, 20 April 2004

Teachers' union affiliates to No Sweat

By Liam Conway and Pat Yarker The National Union of Teachers (NUT) has become the fifth national union to affiliate to No Sweat. A motion passed at the union's annual conference, held in Harrogate, includes comprehensive policy against sweatshop labour and an action plan for campaigning. The NUT has agreed to publicise the Ethical Threads initiative and to campaign in The Teacher magazine and school mailings to encourage schools and colleges to examine the source of uniforms and other garments with a view to insisting on 'labour mark' products. NUT will also campaign within the TUC for the...

Disney sells poisonous pyjamas

Greenpeace is targeting Disney. On 15 April Greenpeace activists dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse climbed the UK headquarters of Disney and unfurled a massive banner highlighting the company's contempt for its customers. Despite being told six months ago that tests showed that Disney-branded pyjamas contain toxic chemicals, the company has refused to remove the affected products from sale. In tests on five pairs of pyjamas available at Disney, a toxic chemical called nonylphenol, that can interfere with human DNA and affect sperm production in mammals, was found. Also present in the children...

Bolivian workers on the move

Bolivia is on the cusp of more social struggle, as the government presses ahead with plans to export gas - the spark for an uprising in October 2003. The main trade union federation, the COB, is threatening an indefinite general strike next month in a renewed bid to halt the government's plan to export natural gas. Last week it gave President Carlos Mesa until 1 May to change his policy on the gas export plan or face more action. Protests over the proposals brought down Mesa's predecessor, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, last October. The union wants the government to nationalise the country's gas...

Unions Call for UN Sanctions against Nike

Four unions representing over three million workers in the US and Canada have called on the United Nations to review Nike's affiliation with the UN Global Compact because Nike systematically violates workers' rights. The UN Global Compact is an initiative that corporations seeking to cast themselves as socially responsible affiliate to. In doing so, they commit to the nine Compact principles on human rights, labour rights and the environment. Nike affiliated itself to Compact in 2000. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Presidents of the four unions claim that Nike systematically...

South Korea: union-based party's breakthrough

The Democratic Labor Party (DLP) won 10 seats in South Korea's general election on 15 April and emerged as the third largest party in its parliament, the National Assembly. The Uri Party, which supports the president Roh Moo-hyun, won 152 seats in the 299-seat National Assembly, giving it a slim majority. The DLP, formed in 2000 and backed by the independent Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), won two seats in electoral districts and an additional eight seats after winning 13.1% of the party vote. Changes in the electoral system helped the DLP. This was the first election where some...

Victory for the victims

By Sam Ruby Two Indian women, Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, have won the Goldman Environmental Prize for their battle on behalf of the victims of the Bhopal gas disaster 20 years ago. The women will use the prize money - $125,000 - to fight corporate crime. Their fight is an awe-inspiring story of working class people taking on corporate murderers, capitalist courts and corrupt government. Almost 2,000 people died instantly when tonnes of the paralytic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, central India, on 3 December, 1984. More than 150,000 people suffered...

Delving into complexity

Analysing the evolution of the Labour Party over the last ten years is a complex business. In September 1996, leading Blairite Stephen Byers told the press that Labour, once elected, would "break the links with the unions altogether" by forcing a dispute with the public sector unions and legislating for state funding of political parties. Although other New Labour leaders disavowed the plan, it looked plausible. Tony Blair himself said he wanted "a situation more like the Democrats and the Republicans in the US. People don't even question for a single moment that the Democrats are a pro...

10 years after the end of apartheid

Hope flickers in South Africa The African National Congress (ANC) won South Africa's general election on 14 April, with 70% of the vote. The queues to vote have shortened slightly after 10 years of democratic South Africa, but the voters are still overwhelmingly backing the ANC. The BBC website recorded the thoughts of some of the voters. Alvina Masinga, aged 59, ing KwaZulu-Natal said: "I feel like I did when I voted for the first time in 1994 - fantastic." Vicki Morris looks at why black voters are sticking with the ANC and whether their loyalty is being rewarded. The ANC were the political...

Developing clear demands from the members

Solidarity talked to Kate Ahrens , a Unison United Left member who was elected last summer to the Health Group women's seat on the Union's National Executive and Healthcare Service Group Executive Will the anger and frustration about Agenda for Change be expressed at the Unison Health conference? KA: Only partially. The agenda contains some motions on the process of the Agenda for Change renegotiations and the second ballot, but not on the deal itself,which will be debated at the special conference in October. Some of the discontent is about the tiny amount of information they are getting...

Debate and discussion: Don't trust the government!

Alan Johnson's equation of recent "anti-terrorist" measures with the socially necessary tasks of the capitalist state (Solidarity 3/49), such as taking responsibility for abused children or incarcerating those who pose a threat to the public, is fundamentally wrong. No genuine socialist would disagree that homicidal terrorists should be "detected, caught, jailed, or killed" - but the point is that the government already does these things! The controversial measures that Blair and Blunkett have introduced are primarily intended to limit civil liberties, not to fight terrorism; "anti-terrorism"...

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