Urgent Action! Help Colombian affiliates in their struggle against water privatisation!

 

 

News articles and protest letters on workers' rights issues that are of strategic concern to trade unionists.

Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) has launched an urgent action and petition to stop the Public Services Bill in Swaziland. The action will be running until 6 September 2010. The different actions taken, together with the petition, will be handed over to the High Commission on 7 September – the first global day of action on Swaziland.

PSI Chilean affiliate Agrupación Nacional Empleados Fiscales (tax workers’ union) has announced a 24-hour national strike for August 26 to protest the sacking of more than 2,500 public employees.

PSI affiliate the Guyana Public Service Union is warning its members to shun what the government is calling its 2010 integrity testing exercise. In other words, using of lie detectors on staff.

On 18 August, more than one million public sector union members in South Africa began taking strike action, demanding a wage increase and changes to housing allowances and medical subsidies.

PSI joins the ITUC in calling on its affiliated unions to approach their governments to try and learn their position on the proposed APEC Labour Forum and general perspectives of labour participation in the APEC process.

 

PSI has produced a large range of publications relating to winning workers' rights. Below is a selection. We are still adding to this list so watch this space!

PSI's UK affiliate UNISON has published a special report on the occasion of International Migrants' Day. The Evaluation Report of the UNISON Migrant Workers Participation Project offers practical advice based on UNISON's experience in organising migrant workers in the union.

December 2007 - Sri Lankan domestic workers face serious abuses, including violence, harassment and exploitation when they migrate to work in the Middle East, Human Rights Watch said in a newly released report. Human Rights Watch said the governments of Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should do more to protect women from labor exploitation and violence when they migrate to the Middle East. "Governments in the Middle East expose Sri Lankan domestic workers to abuse by refusing to guarantee a weekly rest day, limits to the workday, freedom of movement and other rights that most workers take for granted," said Jennifer Turner, a researcher in the Women's Rights division at Human Rights Watch. "For its part, the Sri Lankan government welcomes the money these women send home, but does little to protect them from exploitative bosses or labor agents."

An appalling total of 144 trade unionists were murdered for defending workers’ rights in 2006, while more than 800 suffered beatings or torture, according to the ITUC's Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights Violations. The report details nearly 5,000 arrests and more than 8,000 dismissals of workers due to their trade union activities. 484 new cases of trade unionists held in detention by governments are also documented in the report.

2 October - The ITUC released a new report today on core labour standards in Gabon and Cameroon. This report coincides with both countries´ trade policy reviews at the WTO and highlights important shortcomings in the application and enforcement of core labour standards, with many contradictions between the principles of these binding legal instruments and their application in both countries.

In the presence of Commissioner Spidla, the secretaries general of ETUC, BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME and CEEP officially signed an autonomous framework agreement to fight against harassment and violence at work. Negotiated during ten months, the text commits the members of the signatory parties to combat all unacceptable behaviour that can lead to harassment and violence at the workplace.

 

The following section contains links to other websites on winning workers' rights.

	Estatales Colombia ISP : This new PSI website follows trade union rights developments in Colombia
	Labour rights are human rights : the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), Canada, labour rights e-bulletin
	LabourStart  : an online news service maintained by a global network of volunteers which aims to serve the international trade union movement by collecting and disseminating information -- and by assisting unions in campaigning and other ways.
	Institute of Employment Rights (IER - UK):   A think tank for the labour movement
	http://www.iranlabourwatch.net/ ILRW brings together a group of concerned experts (writers, journalists, trade unionists, and community and human rights activists) and intends, by providing accurate information in an objective way, to make the website a reliable source of news about the Iranian labour community for the audience abroad.