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วันพุธที่ 30 กันยายน พ.ศ. 2552

[Food not Bombs Thailand] Fwd: [prakaifire] เชิญร่วมกิจกรรมเสวนา "สืบสานเจตนารมณ์ 6 ตุลากับความรุนแรงที่ไม่เคยจางหายไปจากกรรมกร"



 
จาก: Suluck Lamubol <suluck@gmail.com>
วันที่: กันยายน 30, 2009 8:28 หลังเที่ยง
หัวเรื่อง: [Food not Bombs Thailand]  [prakaifire] เชิญร่วมกิจกรรมเสวนา "สืบสานเจตนารมณ์ 6 ตุลากับความรุนแรงที่ไม่เคยจางหายไปจากกรรมกร"
ถึง: food-not-bombs-thailand@googlegroups.com




 
From: นางสาวจิตรา คชเดช <ning2475@hotmail.com>
Date: 2009/9/30
Subject: [prakaifire] เชิญร่วมกิจกรรมเสวนา “สืบสานเจตนารมณ์ 6 ตุลากับความรุนแรงที่ไม่เคยจางหายไปจากกรรมกร”
To: 

สทอท. ที่ 0093/2552

 

29 กันยายน 2552

เรื่อง เชิญร่วมกิจกรรมเสวนา “สืบสานเจตนารมณ์ 6 ตุลากับความรุนแรงที่ไม่เคยจางหายไปจากกรรมกร”

เรียน ทุกท่าน

สิ่งที่แนบมาด้วย รายละเอียดกิจกรรมเสวนา “สืบสานเจตนารมณ์ 6 ตุลา ความรุนแรงไม่เคยจางหายไปจากกรรมกร”

เนื่องจากวันที่ 6 ตุลาคม 2552 นอกจากจะเป็นวันครบรอบ 33 ปี เหตุการณ์ความรุนแรงขบวนการขวาพิฆาตซ้ายจากการที่เจ้าหน้าที่รัฐและกลุ่มที่รัฐให้การสนับสนุน ได้เข้าไปล้อมจับกุมและสังหารนักศึกษาและประชาชนภายใน บริเวณมหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์ ท่าพระจันทร์ ซึ่งกำลังชุมนุมประท้วงเพื่อขับไล่ให้จอมพลถนอม กิตติขจรออกนอกประเทศแล้วนั้น  ในวันดังกล่าวยังเป็นวันครบรอบ 99 วันของการชุมนุมหน้าโรงงานของสหภาพแรงงานไทรอัมพ์อินเตอร์เนชั่นแนลแห่งประเทศไทย ซึ่งตลอดระยะเวลาของการชุมนุมก็เผชิญกับความรุนแรงหลากหลายรูปแบบ

ด้วยเหตุนี้ทางสหภาพแรงงานไทรอัมพ์ฯ พร้อมด้วยองค์กรเพื่อนมิตรจึงร่วมกันจัดกิจกรรมเพื่อให้เกิดการแลกเปลี่ยนประสบการณ์ความรุนแรงที่ถูกกระทำโดยรัฐ  และเพื่อให้เกิดความรู้ความเข้าใจในเจตนารมณ์ของนักศึกษาและประชาชนที่ถูกปราบปรามในเหตุการณ์ 6 ตุลา 19 รวมถึงเพื่อให้เกิดการสรุปเป็นบทเรียนและมาตราการในการป้องกัน จัดการกับความรุนแรงดังกล่าวร่วมกัน  จึงได้จัดกิจกรรม เสวนา ภายใต้หัวข้อ “สืบสานเจตนารมณ์ 6 ตุลากับความรุนแรงที่ไม่เคยจางหายไปจากกรรมกร” ขึ้น  พร้อมด้วยกิจกรรมการแสดงดนตรีของนักศึกษาสลับกับการปราศรัยของผู้นำกรรมกรต่างๆ  ณ ที่ชุมนุมหน้าโรงงาน นิคมอุตสาหกรรมเมืองใหม่บางพลี ซอย 7 อ.บางเสาธง จ.สมุทรปราการ ตั้งแต่เวลา 17.00 – 20.00 น.

จึงเรียนมาเพื่อเชิญชวนทุกท่านเข้าร่วมกิจกรรมในวัน เวลา และสถานที่ดังกล่าว

 

ขอแสดงความนับถือ

 

ธัญญยธรณ์ คีรีถาวรพัฒ์

รองประธานสหภาพแรงงานไทรอัมพ์อินเตอร์เนชั่นแนลแห่งประเทศไทย



จิตรา  คชเดช (หนิง)
สหภาพแรงงานไทรอัมพ์อินเตอร์เนชั่นแนลแห่งประเทศไทย
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เพิ่มแผนที่และทิศทางไปสู่งานปาร์ตี้ของคุณ แสดงเส้นทาง!




--
Suluck Lamubol (Fai)

Chulalongkorn University Student
Student Federation of Thailand

Email: Suluck@gmail.com
MSN: suluck_fai@hotmail.com
Skype: fai.suluck

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ขอเชิญอ่าน  blog.Thank you so much.
chan
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http://same111.blogspot.com/        culture
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วันเสาร์ที่ 12 กันยายน พ.ศ. 2552

ICEM InBrief No.139



ขอเชิญอ่าน blog.Thank you so much.
newsnine
 
 
 
 
 
 





Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 21:27:46 +0200
To: 
From: press@icem.org
Subject: ICEM InBrief No.139

ICEM - South African ICEM Affiliates Lead Mass Strike
International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions
 
ICEM Social Dialogue Conference in Thailand Exceeds Expectations
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Thailand

A record number 364 union and management participants attended a Social Dialogue Conference in Thailand last week, 31 August, sponsored by the ICEM, the Thai Ministry of Labour, FNV Mondiaal of the Netherlands, LO-TCO of Norway, and the Employers' Federation of Thailand (ECOT).

The title of the conference was "International Labour Standards and the Wisdom of Co-Existence," and central in purpose was to shape a common understanding of ILO core labour standards, as well as building responsible social governance between Thai labour unions and multinational companies.

Over 150 people more than were expected turned out for the conference, held at the Siam City Hotel in Bangkok. Managing directors and human resource executives from 28 companies attended, including representatives from Esso, Linde-TIG Industrial Gases, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., and Norske Skog paper company.

Part of the Partipants at the Social Dialogue Conference

ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda congratulated those present, and expressed hope that a true commitment to a new era of labour-management relations in Thailand was at hand. He also pledged to extend the resources of the Global Union Federation to Thailand in order that the country ratify core labour conventions, namely Conventions 87 and 98, freedom of association and right to collection bargaining, and Convention 111, the Discrimination in Employment and Occupation Convention.

"It is imperative that values of mutual faith and cooperation be built between managers of transnational companies and Thai labour unions," said Warda. "For this to effectively begin, the Thai government must lead by starting the process toward ratification of ILO core labour standards."

The ICEM organized the conference, jointly with the Thai Ministry of Labour, as a follow-up to a resolution from its 2007 Bangkok Congress. There, delegates recognized a Thai labour-management system structured on authoritarianism and hierarchal in industrial relations.

 Yoshio Sato of Japan, representing ICEM's Asia-Pacific Region; in rear, ICEM Thai Chairman Rawai Pupaga, ECOT Gen. Sec. Siriwan Romchat-thong, and the Thai Labour Ministry's Somchai Chumrat

 

ECOT General Secretary Siriwan Romchat-thong confirmed in her opening remarks that the employers' federation would support ratification of Conventions 87 and 98. A panel discussion composed of labour, management, and governmental leaders showed a consensus toward ratification in the immediate future.

The Thai Permanent Secretary of the Labour Ministry, Somchai Chumrat, stressed the mutual benefit that can be gained through trust between labour and management by dialogue and understanding. "Employers cannot live in a vacuum," he said. "Managers and workers' representatives must sit together to discuss the wisdom of conducting labour relations in peaceful cooperation."

He added that although Thailand recognizes the benefit of foreign investment, senior executives of multinationals must clarify the roles of local managers in Thailand so that they act according to international labour standards and national laws.

Another speaker that echoed the immediate need for a changed culture was Rawai Pupaga, chairman of the ICEM Thai Affiliates Committee and President of Government Pharmaceutical Employees' Association (GPOTU). As a first step, he called on Thai workers and managers alike to show respect for workers' rights by taking part in World Day for Decent Work activities on 7 October.

Other resource people calling for a different labour-management culture were Tim de Meyer, senior specialist for the ILO on International Labour Standards and Labour Law, and Lae Dilokwidhayarat of Chulalongkorn University. Dilokwidhayarat stressed that the globalisation of capital and freedom of movement demands respect for the concept of decent work, meaning adequate compensation, trade union representation, and stability, security, and protection of workplace rights.

A side meeting to the Social Dialogue Conference occurred between the ICEM, local executives of Linde and its Thai Industrial Gases subsidiary, and ICEM affiliate TIG Local Union. The Thai subsidiary of Linde has been neglectful over trade union rights at some 20 Thai workplaces, particularly in respect to work rights and full-time opportunities for short-term contract and temporary workers. The meeting did produce an understanding that TIGLU and the company's managing and human resource directors would meet in the near future to discuss problems and strive for a better relationship.

 
Visit to the Norske Skog Mill in Singburi

One employer that has practiced exemplary social responsibility in Thailand has been the Norwegian paper company Norske Skog. On 1 September, Warda, Rawai Pupaga, ICEM Thai Project Coordinator Aranya Pakapath, and ICEM's Asia-Pacific Contact Person, Phee Jungsun, visited the factory in Singburi, where workers and local managers, including Managing Director Torpong Thongcharoen, hailed a relationship that can serve as a standard within Thailand. Notably, the collective agreement at Norske Skog in Singburi has strict language regarding the use of contract and agency labour, language that both sides respect and adhere to.


This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3372-ICEM-Social-Dialogue-Conference-in-Thailand-Exceeds-Expe)
 


ICEM's World Day for Decent Work Focus on Thailand, Turkey
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Thailand
Turkey

In a month's time, global trade unions will begin actions around the World Day for Decent Work, 7 October. And similarly to last year, the 20-million-member ICEM will focus activities on its Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) campaign, with specific emphasis this year on events in Thailand and Turkey.

In Thailand, the ICEM's Thai Affiliates' Committee has already begun joint preparations with Thai Electronics, Automotive, and Metalworking (TEAM) affiliates and trade unions affiliated to the Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) to bring unionization to CAL workers. The emphasis as well will be on stopping victimization and interference in union activities by both the Thai government and multinational employers.

World Day for Decent Work in Thailand will also focus on the necessity for the government to ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98, the freedom of association and right to organise and right to collective bargaining conventions. In addition, the ICEM Thai Affiliates' Committee will work with the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers' Association (IUF) on injustices committed by Unilever.


Thai activities are likely to include a national trade union seminar, a march, media outreach, and literature and posters made available inside worksites. A further planning meeting on Thai actions around 7 October will occur this week.

In Turkey, the Work Relations Group of the Council of Global Unions, together with Turkish trade union federations, will conduct activities throughout the early days of October against a backdrop of the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Those meetings are to be held on 6-7 October in Istanbul.

On 1 October, the ICEM will lead Turkish affiliated unions and others into a meeting in Ankara with the country's Minister of Labour and Social Security. The purpose of that will be to press the Turkish government for full work rights for temporary and precarious workers. On 2 October, in Istanbul, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Guy Ryder, and other global labour leaders will hold a press conference related to World Day for Decent Work.

Four Turkish trade union federations – TÜRK-İŞ, DİSK, KESK, and HAK-İŞ – have been asked to produce examples of abuse to precarious workers. TÜRK-İŞ is organizing a series of symposiums across the country on the issues of unemployment insurance and hired labour. One such forum is scheduled at Gazi University in Ankara on 7 October.

In July, the ICEM teamed with affiliated Turkish unions and the federations to block a "Private Labour Offices" bill, proposed legislation that would have made it easy for individuals to register as labour brokers and then to dispatch temporary workers to enterprises.

The draconian legislation was vetoed on 9 July by President Abdullah Gül. Although the immediate political climate is not suitable for the bill's return, it is far from dead and ICEM and trade unions hope to use 7 October activities to bury the measure for good. An ICEM report on the legislation can be found here


This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3373&la=EN)
 


World Day for Decent Work, 7 October, Points to Plight of Contract, Agency Workers
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Global

Global labour's World Day for Decent Work next month will reveal a wide swath of economic, social, and gender neglect that assails millions of workers, but nowhere is that neglect as evident anywhere as it is to contract and agency workers. The ICEM, in unity with several other Global Union Federations (GUFs) and the Council of Global Unions, will use the day – 7 October, and indeed, the days before and after – to highlight the need to bring respectability and work rights to contract and agency workers.


As part of ICEM's ongoing Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) Campaign, we are cooperating with other GUFs and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to call on affiliated trade unions and their members to participate actively in events in their countries. The ITUC is continually updating a website that lists events country by country. It can be found here.

The ITUC has produced a Campaign Guide for World Day for Decent Work, which can be found at that site, complete with ideas for actions, media events, and providing literature for worksites. The ICEM's CAL Campaign site contains the ICEM's CAL manual and other useful tools.

In addition, the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) has produced material on Precarious Work for this years' 7 October, which can be used by all, as all Global Union Federations, as well as the ITUC, signed of on it. The booklet, entitled, "Precarious Work Affects Us All", as well as the poster can be, along with other materials for 7 October, found on the IMF's campaign site.

The global economic collapse over the past year has adversely affected most workers in nearly all sectors. But none more so than workers on the fringes of society, workers who live and toil in the shadows of humanity in conditions that will never be termed decent. Equal rights and equal treatment for temporary and agency workers is a prerequisite for a fair and just way of life for all.

Workers' representatives from throughout the world will speak in a unified voice in the days leading up to and following 7 October. That voice will call for a new globalisation that includes stable and quality jobs, better social protections, assurances that every worker has the right to form and join a trade union, to bargain collectively for the betterment of all, and most especially, a voice aimed at lifting the lowest among us to better and sustainable livelihoods.

The ICEM encourages everyone to take part in activities around the Global Day of Action for Decent Work.

 
 

This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3374&la=EN)
 


ICEM Affiliates in India Form Council, Ready to Organise Contract and Agency Workers'
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
India

Leaders from ICEM trade union affiliates in India met in Kolkata on 3-4 September and officially formed an Indian ICEM Affiliates' Council, with BK Das of the Indian National Mineworkers' Federation (INMF) selected as coordinator. At last week's meetings, the 21 delegates also formed a strategy around ICEM's Contract and Agency Labour Campaign, aimed at recruiting such workers into their unions.

Union leaders from the Mining, Chemicals, Cement, and Diamond Polishing sectors took part in the two-day meeting, sponsored in part by the FES India office. The forum was organised as part of a strategic planning workshop on the impact of the economic crisis over employment conditions and challenges faced by unions.

ICEM Gen. Sec. Manfred Warda Indian trade union leaders 

It was attended by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Phee Jungsun, ICEM Materials Officer and Asia-Pacific Regional Contact Person.

Warda assured the Indian affiliates that they will receive sufficient resources to recruit contract and agency workers, as well as for the fight against HIV/AIDS. The ICEM is readying to staff a full-time project coordinator in India.

India's ICEM affiliates agreed to select two delegates each to the Affiliates' Council, with meetings held twice annually. A key emphasis will be improving the weak financial structures of most national level unions, with each affiliate promising to produce a report on its existing financial structure by December 2009.

Delegates also committed to organize a level of 10% of contract or agency workers into their unions, as well as to construct a new joint project proposal on union-building with a priority on contract and agency workers.

The Council also committed to explore ICEM affiliation with Indian petroleum unions, trade unions in the electric power sector, as well as those in the country's burgeoning pharmaceutical sector.

While in India, Warda also attended a master training programme on HIV/AIDS awareness and education, sponsored by the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer. He said this particular project in India has dedicated and committed trade unionists, people "who are focused on bringing attention and then eradicating the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the Indian sub-continent."

 
 

This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3375&la=EN)
 


CFMEU Seeks to Protect Xstrata Coal Mining Jobs in Australia
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Australia

The Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia has launched a campaign against global mining giant Xstrata to preserve coal mining jobs in New South Wales (NSW). The Swiss-based company, on 31 July, announced it was cutting 122 of 550 jobs at its Ulan Mine in western NSW, and 158 more jobs at its Tahmoor colliery in southern NSW.

The CFMEU disputes Xstrata's claim that the scheduled redundancies are intended to improve efficiencies by "realigning employee numbers with the current operating environment." To Xstrata, that means reduced pricing on thermal coal brought by the global financial crisis.


The union claims Xstrata's real intent is to hire more contractors at Ulan, specifically as the company prepares development of major new coal deposits at Ulan West.

CFMEU National President Tony Maher called the cuts callous and offensive. "We highlight this as corporate greed, as this is a very profitable mine," he said. "There are times when retrenchments are unavoidable. This is not one of those times."

 CFMEU's Tony Maher

The Ulan mine is forecast to post an A$140 million profit this year, down from A$330 million in 2008, but still extremely healthy profits considering the global recession. The CFMEU has brought forced dismissal cases before the Australian Industrial Relations Commissions, but a 24 August hearing to block the Ulan redundancies failed.

Some 500 people marched last week in Mudgee, NSW, near Ulan as the first wave of layoffs was to begin. The mayor of Mudgee, a community of 7,000 some 260 kilometres west of Sydney, said the cuts will have a serious knock-on effect to other jobs in the town. The CFMEU says for every high-paid mining job that is lost, another four service or retail jobs will be affected.

The union has started a website on Xstrata's job cuts at Ulan. It can be found here.

Xstrata bought majority control of Ulan in 2001 and controls a 90% stake in the mine. Mitsubishi Development owns the other 10%. At Tahmoor, a mine producing coking coal that Xstrata bought from Centennial Coal in 2007, the company used the same excuse for issuing redundancy notices: market prices are not strong enough to support the current level of 493 jobs.

Xstrata's job curtailments at the two collieries are not the only sites in Australia where the company is forcing redundancies. In June, the tightly held mining concern said it was terminating thermal coal mining at its United Colliery in the Hunter Valley region of NSW. That colliery is to cease operating by March 2010. And in January 2009, Xstrata announced job cutbacks at the Oaky Creek No. 1 mine in central Queensland.

 

This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3376&la=EN)
 


Korean Tyre Dispute at Kumho Ends in Compromise
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
South Korea

A summer-long Korean labour dispute that spiraled into a 25 August lockout by Kumho Tire Co. at three manufacturing plants was resolved Saturday, 5 September, when South Korea's second largest tyre maker and the Kumho Tire Workers' Union of the Korean Metal Workers' Union (KMWU) reached a compromise settlement.

That compromise will preserve 733 of 4,000 jobs that Kumho had proposed be cut. The union, in turn, will extend a 2008 wage freeze through 2009. The Kumho Tire Workers' Union also agreed to forego scheduled 2008 bonuses, with talks over 2009 bonus schemes to be held in the first quarter of 2010.

The dispute began in June when management demanded another wage freeze, non-payment of bonuses, a job-sharing plan that would cut work hours, thus reducing salaries between 20-to-30%, and the redundancies, totaling 18% of the entire workforce. The union then began a series of industrial actions, and was prepared to escalate job actions after Kumho reported its restructuring plan to the Ministry of Labour on 24 August.

Instead, the company imposed lockouts at tyre facilities in Gwangju, Gwanngju province, Gokseong, South Jeolla province, and Pyeonggtaek, Gyeonggi province. When Kumho lifted the lockouts some ten days later, workers embarked on sit-in strike actions. Those ended at the weekend with the negotiated compromise.

The union also retreated on a "no work/no pay" demand by Kumho for the strike days, and salaries will not be paid during periods of strike. The dispute mirrored some of the negative results from the recent Ssangyong Motor struggle.

Kumho Tire is part of the conglomerate Kumho Asiana Group, a holding company that took on massive debt in 2006 with the purchase of Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co. The group's debt-to-equity ratio rose five-fold and Kumho has tried to reduce debt by reducing labour costs.

Kumho Tire has severed its workforce by 130 each year since ill-advised purchase of Daewoo, but last year, in July, a four-day strike by the Kumho Tire Workers' Union convinced the company to withdraw 431 announced redundancies. In the past year, however, Kumho opened its second plant in China, a truck and bus tyre facility in the city of Nanjing.

The Tire Workers' Union, through the KMWU, is affiliated to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

 

This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3377&la=EN)
 


US Tyre Talks Near Complete
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
United States

United Steelworker (USW) members at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in the US will begin voting later this week on a four-year labour agreement, covering over 10,000 workers at seven American factories. A tentative agreement between the USW and Goodyear, America's biggest tyre manufacturer, was reached late in the evening on 29 August, just hours before a second contract extension was due to expire.

Collective agreements between North America's largest industrial union and the US's three major tyre-makers – Goodyear, Bridgestone Americas LLC, and Michelin's BF Goodrich subsidiary – expired on 18 July, but the USW and Goodyear and Michelin North America twice extended negotiation deadlines.

On 15 August, the union and Michelin reached accord on a three-year contract covering 2,500 workers. Workers at two of the company's plants, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, ratified the agreement some eight days later by an 83% affirmative vote. A third Michelin plant, in Opelika, Alabama, that employs 1,000 is set to close on 31 October, and the union and North American management of Michelin negotiated a satisfactory plant-closing pact several months ago.

 

Talks with Bridgestone, covering 4,500 workers at seven of nine of the Japanese company's US plants, are still ongoing. Workers covered under that master agreement are employed now under day-by-day extensions, with each side required to give a five-day notice before contract termination.

The USW's chief goals in US tyre talks this summer have been job security, investment in facilities, and improvements in worker and retiree benefits, specifically related to company-sponsored health care coverage.

At the Goodyear manufacturing plants, USW members are now involved in informational sessions spelling out the terms of the proposed accord, with site-by-site voting to follow. The Goodyear plant sites include: Union City, Tennessee, where auto and light truck tyres are made; Topeka, Kansas, a plant manufacturing commercial truck, bus, and off-road equipment tyres; Gadsden, Alabama, auto and light truck; Fayetteville, North Carolina, auto and light truck; Danville, Virginia, commercial truck and bus tyres, and aircraft tyres; and Akron, Ohio, race-car tyres.

Meanwhile, the USW is bracing for a 17 September deadline in which President Barack Obama must decide on a US International Trade Commission (ITC) recommendation to impose higher tariffs on low-end Chinese tyres entering the American marketplace. The USW petitioned the ITC for relief because of a 215% increase between 2004 and 2008 in Chinese tyre exports to the US. The case is seen as a litmus test for Obama on whether or not he keeps a campaign pledge to protect US-based jobs.


This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3378&la=EN)
 


USW Women call on US Government to Take Definitive Action in Honduras
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Honduras
United States

Women of Steel, the women's organization of ICEM North American affiliate United Steelworkers (USW), has called on the US government to take stronger action against the Honduran military, following the 28 June coup of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya.

The union's women's group pointed to at least 19 cases of rape by police officers since the coup began, and cited a report by Feministas de Honduras en Resistencia that said police are using rape and other forms of sexual assault against women leaders of the resistance to blunt a return to democracy.

In a 31 August letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Women of Steel Director Ann Flener said, "We call upon you and President Obama to denounce the repression and basic human rights violations being carried out by the current illegitimate government and to take all necessary steps to restore President Zelaya, including the withdrawal of the US Ambassador to Honduras; the end of all economic assistance to the coup regime, including monies granted by the Millennium Challenge Corp., and to freeze all assets of the coup leaders.

"As women, we ask you to speak out and stand up against this violence against women …" The letter also asked Secretary of State Clinton to denounce the gender violence in Honduras, similar to her denouncement of violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Some of USW's Women of Steel 

The letter was copied to President Barack Obama, US First Lady Michelle Obama, 17 women members of the US Senate, and several other US government officials.

While the US government has verbally called for the return to power of Zelaya, it has officially refrained from terming the overthrow a coup, which would legally require it to suspend all economic and military aid. The US is Honduras's chief trade partner.

Most European Union governments have withdrawn their ambassadors, and EU countries in total have suspended US$90 million in aid to the Central American country.

On 30 July, Carlos Reyes, General Secretary of International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers' (IUF) affiliated STIBYS, was brutally attacked by Honduran police squads while he was peacefully protesting the military coup in the northern city of Tegucigalpa. Reyes, an IUF Executive Committee member, suffered a severely broken arm and other serious injuries.

 

This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3379&la=EN)
 


Los Mineros Bank Assets Unfrozen, Then Frozen Again
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Mexico

In Mexico on 25 August, an appellate court overturned the government's freeze on bank accounts of the National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union (SNTMMSRM), or Los Mineros. But a week later, on 2 September, Mexico's Attorney General reissued an order freezing those accounts.

The appeals court ruled that the government's asset freeze on union accounts could only be imposed on specific evidence, not on a general suspicion of money laundering. The court thus ruled against a decree from late last year that continued a freeze on the union's funds, now tied up for nearly three years.

The Attorney General's office again used Article 181 of Mexico's penal code to freeze the union's assets.


Los Mineros will continue to appeal this order, despite not having the necessary information from the government in order to wage its legal fight.

Meanwhile, a special working group of the Mexican Senate has agreed to accept videotape testimony from the union's leader in exile, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, over the Cananea mine strike. Napoleón Gómez, who is in exile in Canada, will be allowed to testify on Grupo México's complicity in alleged human rights abuses at the mine where SNTMMSRM members have now been on strike for 25 months.

The Mexican Miners' and Metalworkers' Union was approved for ICEM affiliation during the 23-24 June Executive Committee meetings.


This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3380&la=EN)
 


Degrading Work Abuses Brought Forward in Uganda
7 September 2009ICEM InBrief
Uganda

Ugandan trade unions have brought to light de-humanising work conditions imposed by foreign investors in some of the country's workplaces. In a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni in Entebbe on 1 September, leaders of the Central Organisation of Free Trade Unions (COFTU) said abuse of workers and mistreatment is increasingly on the rise in private businesses controlled by outside investors.

Although COFTU did not name employers, the worst of the abusive practices were by small businesses. Dr Sam Lyomoki, COTFU's General Secretary and a member of the Uganda Parliament, presented a petition to the President that outlined general shortcomings in pay and work conditions, as well as failure by some employers to remit income tax and social security deductions to the government.

But the biggest shock came when labour leaders told of denigrating practices imposed by bosses on workers. Specific incidents were cited. One involved a small-business owner who forced an employee to mop an office floor with her tongue. Another boss in a food and detergent manufacturing plant locked a female worker in a toilet in retaliation for her using the toilet before a scheduled break.

Reports said Museveni was visibly shaken upon hearing such accounts. He ordered the Labour Ministry to immediately investigate the abuses. He also told the trade union federation that he would support establishment of labour institutes within the country that would monitor employer misconduct, as well as safeguard workers' health and safety.

 

This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site (http://www.icem.org/index.php?id=78&doc=3381&la=EN)
 




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