Take Action to Help Cleaning Workers in Netherlands
Spreading the work here from our friends at LabourStart, who sent this action request (and plug for its conference this year).
They’re calling it the “uprising of the invisible.”
Cleaning workers in the Netherlands have been on strike for 30 days and have now asked for international solidarity. They’ve created an online campaign on LabourStart which needs your help.
It will take you just one minute to tell their employers—and their employers’ clients—that it’s time to show these workers some respect, and to reach agreement to end the strike.
Please send off your message here today and spread the word.
And one more thing….
We’ve just announced the dates for the third annual LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, from Nov. 26-29 2012. To learn more and show your interest in attending, please visit the Event page on Facebook.
Join the Campaign to Gain a Voice for T-Mobile Workers
|
|
While T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, respects workers’ right to bargain collectively in Germany, T-Mobile’s U.S. management has fought workers’ attempts to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) with campaigns of delaying tactics and interference to intimidate workers.
You can help T-Mobile employees gain a voice on the job by signing a petition here telling Deutsche Telekom we expect better from a corporation that asserts it’s committed to social justice. Join in by demanding that T-Mobile USA stop bullying workers and agree to end all interference in their workers’ decision to join CWA. The petition is sponsored by LabourStart in partnership with the global 20 million-member UNI Global Union.
IBEW Wins LabourStart’s Video of the Year
 |
Max is in deep trouble. His bosses have seen him meeting with “union types” and they want a word with him. Privately. Behind closed doors. Now!
Max is about to get a taste of “Workplace Democracy: Corporate Style” in this Electrical Workers (IBEW) video that is the winner of LabourStart’s second annual Labour Video of the Year contest.
More than 3,000 votes were cast for the five finalists who were selected by a panel of judges from the more than 200 entries.
In the IBEW winner, longtime employee Max has been observed, both on and off the job, meeting with union organizers and supporters. One day at work, a beefy foreman approaches him and sternly says:
Max, we need to see you in the conference room.
Video Finalists Picked in LabourStart’s Video of the Year Contest
The five finalists have been selected for LabourStart’s second annual Labor Video of the Year competition and you have until midnight GMT (8 p.m. EDT) May 31 to select your favorite.
The five videos were produced by:
- The United Steelworkers (USW), highlighting Honeywell’s use of inexperienced, temporary workers at a uranium facility following a lockout;
- The Electrical Workers (IBEW), portraying corporate-style “workplace democracy”;
- The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), showing how a union contract means job safety;
- The Transport Workers (TWU), reviewing the fight for workers’ rights in Wisconsin; and
- Melissa Koch, who tracks her father’s outsourced airline mechanic job to China.
Click here to view the entries and vote.
Global Union Movement Calls for End to Repression in Bahrain
The union movement around the world and in the United States is calling on the government of Bahrain to lift its state of emergency and halt its the all-out attack against union members.
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reports that thousands of workers have been dismissed for taking part in trade union activities in support of the peaceful calls for greater democracy and reform. More than 750 union members and half of the leaders of the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Unions (GFBTU) also have been dismissed from their jobs.
Bahrain is sliding into absolute dictatorship, the ITUC says, and the “elimination of trade union activity is being given a high priority by those in the ruling circles who intend to complete the transformation of the country into a totalitarian state.”
Nominate a Video for LabourStart’s Labor Video Competition
|
|
Stuart Elliott, senior correspondent for LabourStart, the global online labor news service, reminds us it’s time to nominate videos for the Labor Video of the Year competition.
For the second consecutive year, LabourStart is sponsoring the Labor Video of the Year competition, open to trade unionists and filmmakers from around the world.
Video entries must be online, run less than three minutes and focus primarily on work, workers or workers’ issues. You do not have to be the owner or producer of a video to nominate it. There are categories for organizing, drama, comedy, documentary, musical, science fiction and other.
Nominations must be submitted before midnight GMT (8 p.m. EDT) on April15, 2011. Winners will be announced after two weeks of online voting.
Canadian Farm Workers March Wins LabourStart Photo Contest
 |
|
LabourStart subscribers from around the world selected Gerardo Correa’s photo of a Canadian farm workers’ march as the winner in the news service’s 2010 Labor Photo of the Year contest.
Correa’s submission depicts migrant farm workers as they embark early Thanksgiving morning for a “Pilgrimage for Freedom.” The 50-kilometer walk from Leamington to Windsor in Ontario highlighted their demands for basic workers’ rights. There are more than 25,000 workers who spend up to eight months a year on temporary visas working and harvesting on farms across Canada.
This was LabourStart’s third annual global photo contest, and it drew hundreds of entries that were narrowed down to five finalists (click here to view). LabourStart’s Stuart Elliot says the contest:
recognizes the talents of worker-photographers around the world, and at the same time encourages them to tell the stories of our struggles in photos.
Vote for LabourStart’s Photo of the Year
 |
||||
|
||||
Stuart Elliott, senior correspondent for the international labor news and campaign site LabourStart, reports on the site’s 2010 Labor Photo of the Year contest.
It’s time to vote for the LabourStart 2010 Labor Photo of the Year. This year’s finalists dramatically illustrate the struggles of workers around the globe. The contest recognizes the talents of worker-photographers around the world, and at the same time encourages them to tell the stories of our struggles in photos.
Click here to cast your vote for the Photo of the Year. The voting ends at midnight GMT (7 p.m. EST) Dec. 31. You can vote only once.
LabourStart Conference to Explore Global Worker Solidarity
 |
|
Stuart Elliott, from the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation of Central Kansas, reports on the upcoming LabourStart Global Solidarity conference in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
LabourStart, the global online labor news service, will hold its 2010 Global Solidarity conference at a time when workers are caught in an economic tsunami and employers are using the crisis as an excuse to trample workers’ rights. Participants from more than 50 countries will hear firsthand about the struggles of working people around the world, especially under repressive regimes such as Iran and China, at the July 9–11 conference at McMaster University’s School of Labor Studies in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Powered by 800 volunteer correspondents across the globe, LabourStart daily publishes links to hundreds of labor stories in 23 languages. Working closely with national unions and global union federations, LabourStart spearheads action campaigns in multiple languages. It has promoted union use of new media through its labor website, photo and video of the year contests.
LabourStart founder Eric Lee says:
This conference represents a major step forward for LabourStart in particular and for international labor networking in general. We’ve gone beyond the format of the small, invitation-only event and are holding an event that is utterly unique, one that includes rank and file activists, trade union staffers and senior elected union officials from all over the world. It promises to be an exciting and important event.
Australian Spoof Takes Top Prize in LabourStart Video Contest
 |
|
The envelope, please….The winner of LabourStart’s first labor video contest is “What have Unions Ever Done for Us?” a Monty Python-esque look at a scowling CEO and his minions as they prepare to bring a union to its knees.
The contest drew more than 200 entries and after an international panel of judges chose six finalists, more than 3,000 people cast their online votes.
The Australian winner was produced by Your Rights At Work, the Australian counterpart of the AFL-CIO community affiliate, Working America. After the CEO explains why he wants to bludgeon the union, he asks, “What have the unions ever done for us?”
