Fat cats, an appeal from Colombia, and an update on Haiti

Fat cats

This week's LabourStart book of the week is one for your kids -- Joe Van der Katt and the Great Picket Fence.

 In this delightful children’s book, in the town of Litterbox in New York’s Catskill Mountains, J. Paul Kitty and the other fat cats have all the money and power until the poor cats get organized and demand fair pay and better working conditions.

The employees at Cat’s Cradle Company eventually triumph when they build a picket fence for the owner but don’t make a gate. 

The book is filled with fun puns and illustrations with very funny – and sometimes hidden – gags.

Strongly recommended as a way to introduce your little ones to the labour movement.

Click here to learn more or to order your copy today.

Remember that every copy you order helps to support LabourStart's campaigning activities.

 

Colombia: Workers under fire

Workers in Colombia are once again victims of armed violence for trying to exercise their right to join and be represented by a trade union. On January 14, armed gunmen entered the Palo Alto plantation, Ciénaga district, Magdelena. They had a list of names in their hands and demanded to know the whereabouts of two specific workers. They then shouted, "Get out of here because we have come to kill you – no hiding" and opened fire, wounding one worker. 185 workers were then forced at gunpoint to leave their workplace.  Their union, SINTRAINAGRO, condemned the violence and called for solidarity action -- and their global union federation, the IUF, has now launched a major online campaign.  Please take a moment to show your support.

Haiti: Update

We've received a lot of reports from you in the last 24 hours about what your unions are doing to support the people of Haiti.  We're posting all these reports as they come in to our Haiti news page -- please check it out and pass on the URL to your fellow union members. The outpouring of support from unions around the world is truly magnificent and we should be proud of what has been done so far.

Please pass this message on!  

Thanks.

Eric Lee

Haiti: What unions are doing

I'll keep this brief and to the point.

Unions around the world are raising money and sending volunteers to Haiti.  There's full coverage of all this activity on LabourStart.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has called for "a major international mobilisation of humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Haiti" in a statement released last week.

If you want to do something to help the people of Haiti now, click on your country here:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Australia

If your union is raising money for Haiti or doing any other solidarity work, please let us know.

Thanks.

 

 

 

Eric Lee

Turkey: 10,000 workers protest despite police violence - and need your help

More than 10,000 workers in Turkey are now in their fourth week of protests in near-freezing temperatures and they're asking for our help.

They are employed by Tekel, the former tobacco monopoly, and are protesting against a snap government decision to close their workplaces at the end of this month.  They face either unemployment or work at lower wages and fewer benefits.

Their protests began last month when over 100 buses brought them to Ankara to demonstrate in front of the ruling party's headquarters.  But police drove them away, forcing the workers into a nearby park. 

Police then put up barricades around the park and used water hoses and tear gas against the workers.  Police violence escalated, workers were beaten with clubs, and many were hospitalized.

The demonstrators have since moved their protest to outside the headquarters of the Turkish union confederation, where they hold daily demonstrations.  Some have gone on hunger strike.

The IUF has launched an online protest -- please take a moment to send off your message today.

This long struggle is also breaking the union's treasury and they've issued an urgent appeal for funds.  If your union can help, please contact the IUF (iuf@iuf.org)  and they'll tell you how.

Please share this message - forward it to other members of your union, to your co-workers, to family and friends.

Thanks very much.

Eric Lee

Tom Zaniello is a living, walking encyclopedia of films about labour.

I heard him speak at a conference once, but it wasn't so much a speech as a high-speed tour through dozens of film clips, lovingly selected, all aiming to make a point.

I don't know anyone who knows more about cinema and the labour movement than he does.

And Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An expanded guide to films about labor is his, well, encyclopedia about the subject.

It's a 434 page guide to 350 labour films from around the world, ranging from those you’ve heard of — Salt of the Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, Roger & Me — to those you’ve never heard of but will fall in love with once you see them.

Zaniello describes all the films in detail, tells you whether they’re available for rental or purchase, and, if so, where.

Fiction and nonfiction, the films are about unions, labour history, working-class life, political movements, and the struggle between labour and capital.

Each entry includes critical commentary, production data, cast list, suggested related films, and annotated references to books and Web sites for further reading.

If you want to know more about labour films, buy this book.

And remember that every copy you purchase helps support LabourStart.

Thanks very much.

 

Eric Lee

In a drive to destroy the independent union at the giant Haft Tapeh
plantation/refining sugar complex in southern Iran, a court on October
12 sentenced six union leaders to prison on charges of "endangering
national security."

Their only crime was to lead a strike.

Haft Tapeh workers have repeatedly had to resort to strikes and other
actions to claim huge wage arrears and protest deteriorating working
conditions.

"The regime is clearly determined to crush the union by putting its
entire leadership behind bars," writes the IUF, the global union
federation for food workers.

They've launched an online campaign of protest. Please take a moment
and send off your messages:

http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=449

To learn more about the case, read this:

http://www.iuf.org/den6280

There's full coverage of Iranian labour news on LabourStart, here:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Iran&langcode=en

Thanks for your support.

Eric Lee

A global campaign led by the IUF has resulted a big victory for workers in Pakistan. Unilever has backed down and agreed to create 200 permanent jobs at a Lipton tea factory that previously only employed 22 workers directly.  It is a massive shift away from the trend toward casualization and a big win for the Khanewal Workers' Action Committee.  Full details are here:

http://www.iuf.org/den6281

Meanwhile in the UK, cleaners on Eurostar trains are ramping up their struggle and have announced further strike dates.  Together, we have sent more than 3,400 messages to the company, but they're clearly not listening.  We need to encourage many more of our fellow trade union members to participate in this important campaign.  Please pass this web address on to your friends and co-workers (and send a message yourself if you've not yet done so):

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=575

With the holiday season only weeks ago, I know that many of you are thinking -- how can we teach our kids about the need for trade unions and at the same time show our support for LabourStart?  (OK, maybe you're not thinking that, but it would be great if you did!)  Here's one suggestion -- a new book called "The Worst Children's Jobs in History" is our book of the week.  Please check it out and order copies for your kids -- and yourself:

http://www.labourstart.org/bookshop/?p=94

Finally, we're only four days away from the deadline for voting in the second Labour Photo of the Year competition.  If you've not yet voted, you need to do so before midnight on 31 October.  Many more of you have voted than did so last year and there are five really amazing photos on the shortlist -- well worth checking out.  Please spread the word:

http://www.labourstart.org/lpoty/

Thanks very much.

Eric Lee

Just under 1,600 of you responded to last week's survey -- the first ever -- on the trade union movement and Twitter.

You can see the results here:

http://www.labourstart.org/twittersurvey2009.html

If you've not yet done so, I urge you to sign up as a follower of LabourStart on Twitter, here:

http://twitter.com/labourstart

Please pass this message on to your fellow trade union members -- and have a great weekend.

Eric Lee

Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi trade unions were held in the regime's tight grip. 

When that regime fell, independent trade union activists emerged from the underground and quickly set up new, and free, unions.

Today those unions are united as the General Federation of Iraqi Workers and are a beacon of hope to the Iraqi people who have suffered for so long.

But they are once again under threat of state control.

The Iraqi government is attempting to wrest control of the unions, and the unions are fighting back.

They've asked us to launch a global campaign in defense of their independence and it will take you less than a minute to add your voice in their support.

Please click here to learn more and to send off your message of protest to the Iraqi government.

And pass this web address -- http://tinyurl.com/yllzp4u -- on to your fellow union members.

Thanks very much.

On Saturday, October 10, thousands of Mexican Federal Police seized control of hundreds of installations of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (Luz y Fuerza del Centro), which supplies electricity to Mexico City and several neighbouring states.

Minutes later the government announced that the company was being liquidated and the 40,000 unionized workers dismissed.

If allowed to stand, the government's decree could lead not only to the privatization of the country's electrical industry, but also to the destruction of the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME) and elimination of its members' collective agreement and pension benefits for 15,000 retirees.

The SME is one of Mexico's oldest independent trade union organizations with one of the best collective agreements in the country. It has been playing a leading role in the fight against privatization, proposed regressive reforms to the Federal Labour Law, and other neoliberal policies.

Its destruction would therefore represent a major setback for Mexico's independent labour movement and for all Mexican workers.

Please click here to send on your protest

Pictured: Members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union gather for a May Day march. Photo: César Augusto Martínez.

Also ...

• If you've haven't yet done so, you've got 15 more days to cast your vote for the Labour Photo of the Year --   Over 2,600 votes have already been cast.
• In the last 24 hours, more than 1,100 of you have filled in our survey regarding Twitter. We'll announce the results in six days.  If you haven't yet participated, please go here
  
• Finally, please encourage your fellow union members to sign up to this mailing list.  The more of you on this list, the bigger and more effective are our online campaigns.  Tell your friends and colleague to sign up here
  

Thanks -- and have a great weekend.

Eric Lee