Trade union rights news

In Guatemala, more than 50 trade unionists, most of them public sector workers, have been murdered in the last three years alone. In addition, numerous cases of torture, kidnappings, raids and death threats have created a culture of fear and violence.

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The international labour movement celebrates 1 May in memory of the activists who were killed in the Haymarket massacre of 1886 while demonstrating for the eight-hour work day. Today, using the pretext of the economic and financial crises, neo-liberal forces around the world are determined to eliminate workers’ right to bargain collectively and hard-won social and labour rights. Workers and our communities are uniting to turn back the wave of measures being used to increase privatisation, claw back public spending, reduce the size and role of the state, and to attack social dialogue and collective bargaining in public sector workplaces.

Latest update: 72 members of the public sector union were released from jail on 10 April, some after nearly ten months of detention. The bad news is that the charges were not dropped and they all need to appear in court again in July. Another 15 union leaders, all of them women, are due to appear in court on 18 April.