91 Unionists Killed in 2008, 49 in Colombia Alone
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A total of 91 union members were killed worldwide last year, the same number as in 2007. But more than half (49) were killed in Colombia alone, 10 more than last year, making it once again the most dangerous country for trade unionists, according to the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC’s) “Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights.”
The Colombian government has not vigorously investigated or prosecuted the killing of trade union members. At the current pace of investigations and trials, it would take 37 years to prosecute the backlog of cases. And the caseload is growing—the rate of killings, which had fallen for a few years, jumped sharply last year by 25 percent, says José Luciano Sanin, director of Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Union School), a leading Colombian think tank.
Global Support Growing for Employee Free Choice
Since Friday, when we wrote about international union support for the Employee Free Choice Act, more letters backing this critical legislation have poured in from around the world.
In separate letters to United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard, leaders of unions in eight countries, along with an international union federation, have expressed solid support for the bill. The latest letters come from all corners of the world: Paraguay, Japan, Ghana, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Togo, the base of the 13-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM).
Workers Around the World Back Employee Free Choice
Workers around the world understand the freedom to freely join a union is a human right and one of the key marks of a free society. That’s why the global union movement is solidly behind the Employee Free Choice Act.
The most recent examples of that strong support come from Thailand and Indonesia. In a letter to United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard, Saman Pronprachathum, general secretary of the Petroleum & Chemical Worker’s Federation of Thailand, says “a strong economy depends on workers [being] given the opportunity to join a trade union and to bargain collectively so that fair wages and social benefits are lifted for all in a society.”
Indonesian Workers Ready to Weather Global Economic Storm
Tim Ryan of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center reports from Indonesia, where the global economic crisis is eerily familiar.
When the U.S. economy went over the edge in the middle of September, I had a horrible feeling of déjà vu. Except it wasn’t an illusion because I’d actually seen it before. Ten years ago, I was working with trade unions and labor activists all across Indonesia, where the Asian version of what’s happening now on the global level brought tremendous chaos and a revolution to this country of 220 million people.
