International unions

On Monday 6 February, the landmark trial began in Hong Kong of 47 leading members of the 2019-20 democracy movement on charges of subversion. Most of the defendants have already been in prison awaiting trial for almost two years. Five have been threatened with life imprisonment. The Hong Kong 47 (HK47) include almost every leading public figure who has been prominent in calling for democratic and workers' rights in HK. Veteran socialist Leung Kwok-Hung ("Long Hair") of Hong Kong's League of Social Democrats is among them, and trade union leaders Carol Ng and Winnie Yu. Carol had earlier been a...

On 19 January, France’s trade unions reported over two million demonstrators — people demonstrating, not just striking — across the country against President Macron’s plan to change the standard pension age from 62 to 64. Even the police put the figure at 1.12 million. The turnout was bigger than on 5 December 2019, at the start of the previous big movement against cutting pension rights, and comparable to the bigger movement in 1995. In France strikes are rarely 100%, but this time the strike (called jointly by all the sizeable union confederations) was 100% at the Total oil refineries, more...

Arrested: former Italian MEP Antonio Panzeri, Greek MEP Eva Kaili, ITUC general secretary Luca Visentini The person at the heart of the Qatar-ITUC financial scandal, who gave disgraced International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) general secretary Luca Visentini his €50,000, is former Italian MEP Antonio Panzeri. Panzeri was an MEP for Article One, a supposedly left-wing split from Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party. He was touted as a “human rights advocate”. Yet the Financial Times has revealed that during his time in the European Parliament, and since, he has been an active advocate not...

See also Eric's article from June 2021, 'Qatar, the ITUC and the strange case of Malcolm Bidali' In early December, the newly-elected leader of the International Trade Union Confederation, Luca Visentini, was arrested in Brussels as part of a major police operation targeting members of the European Parliament. Visentini was released conditionally after a couple of days and temporarily stepped aside from his new job. The scandal — quickly branded as “Qatargate” — involved large payments in cash from the Qatari government to leading figures in the European Parliament, mainly from the centre-left...

As a wave of strikes sweep France, beginning with oil and petrol refinery workers but spreading into other industries like transport, the French state has started to use some of its legal weaponry against striking workers. The most dramatic tool that the French state can deploy against strikers is “requisitioning”. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne instructed prefects (regional chiefs of civil service and police) to start using this power to order strikers back to work. The law allows this power to be used in emergencies where there is a threat to “good order, health, peace and public safety”...

The “pro-labour, pro-union” US President Joe Biden has ratified a deal for rail workers to break a national strike that was due to hit on the 9 December. The deal ends a stalemate in negotiations between four out of the 12 US rail unions that have been ongoing for three years and affects 120,000 rail workers. The deal ensures pay increases of up to 24%, but spread over five years. It also fails to add a single extra paid sick day to the zero currently provided, and many workers feel it risks turning the railroad into a “revolving-door job” with long-term job cuts. A handful of “progressives”...

On Saturday 3 December Iran’s attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri claimed that, “both parliament and the judiciary are working [on the issue of the mandatory headscarf law for women]”, to discuss if the law needs any changes. A review team met on Wednesday 30 November with the “Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution”, “and we will see the results in a week or two,” the attorney general added. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also claimed on Saturday that Iran’s “Islamic foundations” were constitutionally entrenched, but went on to say, “there are methods of implementing the...

A worker and union activist at RATP, the Parisian equivalent of Transport for London, spoke at an online meeting hosted by Tubeworker and Off the Rails on 17 November, discussing the recent strike wave. He is a supporter of L’Etincelle, a revolutionary socialist tendency within the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party, NPA). This morning (17 November) there was a rally in front of my company’s headquarters. It’s not the first. Last winter, we were on strike during the annual wage negotiations. On 29 September, a long-term strike movement was born, a bit like yours, it seems...

Belgian workers staged a general strike on 9 November to demand scope for wage rises, cuts in energy bill, and an increase in welfare benefits. One-day general strikes are relatively common in Belgium. This one was more effective than most. In Brussels, no trains were running as far as I could see. Very few buses, only a few trams. The post, bin collections, and schools all stopped. At the main university campus, there were well-attended student picket-lines, and blockades on some buildings, though some classes went ahead. Students are hard-hit as well as workers, because the rents for student...