International unions

Trade union struggles outside the UK

Taco Bell workers win struggle

Workers at Taco Bell in the US have won their struggle after a long campaign. Last week Taco Bell, the fast food industry leader in the US announced it had reached an agreement with farm worker organisation, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), to address the wages and working conditions of farmworkers in the Florida tomato industry. Lucas Benitez, a leader of the CIW said: "This is an important victory for farmworkers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an immediate material change in the lives of workers. This sends a clear...

Wellington union rep sacked

The Service and Food Workers’ Union (SFWU) in New Zealand is calling on national and international union networks to publicise the sacking of one of its union reps at Wellington Airport. SFWU argues that the rep was dismissed unjustifiably and targeted because of his union activities at LSG Skychefs. The rep already had an outstanding personal grievance against the company from disciplinary action taken against him last year. The union believes this dismissal is part of an ongoing attempt by the company to terminate his employment because of his union involvement. More information: Labourstart...

How to build a trade union

Bob Carnegie is an organiser for the Queensland Builders’ Labourers’ Federation (BLF). He was previously an organiser for the Maritime Union of Australia, and has been a rank-and-file trade unionist in a number of industries, including construction and seafaring. The Queensland BLF today shows a pattern of industrial militancy and organisation substantially different from that to be found in unions in the countries of old trade union organisation like the UK. Job grievances, even when they immediately concern only one or a few workers, are routinely dealt with by strike action. The typical...

Stop the killing!

From Justice for Colombia The National Trade Union School [NTUS], a EU funded research institution based in Medellin, Colombia, records 94 assassinations of trade unionists in 2004, an increase on the 90 trade unionists that both the NTUS and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) registered killed in 2003. The NTUS has also reported an increase in “disappearances” and arbitrary detentions. This deterioration contrasts with Colombian government claims that human rights abuses against trade union members are declining. Send messages of protest to: President Alvaro Uribe...

Boost for Wal-Mart workers

Workers trying to organise a union in retail giant Wal-Mart in Canada have received a boost from the Quebec labour relations board, who recently ordered Wal-Mart to stop intimidating and harassing workers. The board found that Wal-Mart officials had intimidated three female employees, seeking to prevent them from exercising their rights under the labour code to form a union. The United Food and Commercial Workers union is trying to organise workers at more than a dozen of Wal-Mart’s 235 stores in Canada. Wal-Mart has now threatened to close the Jonquière, Quebec store that was the first Wal...

Hotel workers strike set to spread

US hotel workers are locked in a bitter dispute that has now lasted more than six months. Fourteen San Francisco hotels are affected whilst others in Los Angeles are still at odds after year-long contract talks. Hotels affected in California include Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott and Four Seasons. Hotels have curbed financial fallout from strikes and lockouts by hiring temporary workers or bringing in replacements from non-union hotels. But as hotel ownership has become more concentrated, unions are now trying to organise nationally to break the fragmentation that has characterised previous...

Workers’ victory in Haiti: Solidarity bears fruit

By Mark Osborn A year after the fall of the populist, pseudo-radical government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, conditions for the workers and poor of Haiti are terrible and getting worse. Last year, in May, 2,000 people died as a result of floods that hit the south of the island state. In September another 3,000 died following a tropical storm that hit the north of Haiti. Fighting broke out in November 2004 as gangs, perhaps based on Aristide’s party, killed opponents in the capital, Port-au-Prince. In the last six months 250 people have died in political violence in the capital. Last weekend a...

Sugar refinery strike

The owners of the Hacienda Luisita in the Philippines will shut down its operations in March to thwart workers involved in a bitter dispute. The four-month dispute at the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT), the biggest sugar refinery in the Philippines, began in November when workers belonging to the CATLU union organised a strike following deadlock in the collective bargaining agreement talks. Employers sacked union leaders and threatened workers. CATLU received solidarity from another local union, the ULWU farm workers’ union. On 16 November, seven demonstrators were killed by bullets when an...

Building European unity

By Rachael Webb At the end of February representatives from international road transport workers’ unions met to fight an international low wage threat. The meeting included people from Belgium, Germany, Poland, Denmark, UK and Ireland, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania. We met in Vilnius, Lithuania in order to plan a delegate meeting at Eastbourne T&G Centre on the 7 May. Before then there will be a series of local meetings between freight drivers to decide on our delegates and debate and discuss our strategy for fighting against the low wage threat. The Vilnius meeting agreed five points for...

Unions express disappointment with president

A group representing 52 trade unions has expressed “disappointment” with the poor performance of new Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during his first 100 days in office. The trade unions, grouped in the Indonesian Labor Unions Communications Forum, said that Yudhoyono had failed to deliver on campaign promises. Forum chairman Eggy Sudjana said the government had done nothing to create jobs, to provide legal protection for Indonesians working overseas and failed to stop rampant abuse of Indonesian workers in Malaysia. Dita Sari, chair of the Indonesian Workers National Front...

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