After Two Decades of Darkness, a Daybreak in Burma?
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This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.
Almost 22 years ago, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide in a free and fair election in Burma—but the military dictatorship refused to let the NLD take power. Instead, the ruling junta crushed the organization and imprisoned its members and activists, including its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
In the past six months, Burma seems to be thawing, opening to the outside world it long shunned. And Suu Kyi, who spent many of the interceding years under house arrest—and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her struggle—is out again among the people, speaking at rallies and renewing her call for democracy.
On a recent trip to Rangoon, I had the opportunity to sit down with Aung San Suu Kyi for a conversation about the future of the labor movement in Burma. We discussed my meetings over the previous few days—with journalists, farmers, textile and garment workers and industrial workers—all of whom had started to form independent unions. She thanked the Solidarity Center and the U.S. labor movement for its support.
Egypt’s New Labor Movement Comes of Age
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This is a cross-post by Ben Moxham of Stronger Unions, the blog from the United Kingdom’s Trade Union Congress (TUC) on the new Egyptian trade union movement that has its roots in last year’s incredible uprising that toppled the Mubarak government.
Shawna Bader-Blau, executive director of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, and Lisa McGowan, acting director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Solidarity Center, participated in the historic founding Congress of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU). The Congress represented an important step forward in the struggle by Egyptian workers to form free and independent unions.
On the desert-battered outskirts of Cairo, in a kitsch marble convention center, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) has just announced to Egypt and the world that it has come of age. EFITU was born in the inspiration and chaos of Tahrir square, exactly 12 months to the day. Since then they have been organizing, organizing and organizing. Today was a chance to show the results and I was blown away.
The federation claims to have organized a phenomenal 2 million workers into 200 unions in barely a year. Of course, many of the new independent unions have their roots in the underground workers’ struggles throughout the past decade. And without clear ways to keep membership records, the total figure may be in doubt, but as an accurate figure emerges it will still be the single most impressive organizing effort I’ve ever come across (and this is just one of the two new independent federations: the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress [EDLC] claims to have signed up 214 unions with a seven figure combined membership also).
Legitimacy means everything to this nascent movement. So long denied a voice in the workplace and a voice in society, they are determined to be democratic and everywhere. “We bid farewell to land-lord run unions” of Mubarak, said Kamal Abou Aita, the acting president of EFITU.
And they did so in meticulous-style: each of the 264 delegates would vote, one-by-one, walking up onto the congress stage, showing their ID, filing out their ballot and putting it in a large glass box for the entire hall to see. “How powerful is that?” I thought after the first few votes. “How long will this take?” I thought after three hours and only 140 delegates in. More hours passed and I realized that these guys have pyramid-building patience and that I’d nodded off and drooled a bit.
But by then the party had set in. Us international guests filed some dead air time by firing off our best Read the rest of this entry »
Migrants’ Trade Union in South Korea Grows, Gains International Support
Migrant workers face tremendous pressure and exploitation in dynamic and wealthy South Korea, reports the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Timothy Ryan.
In one of the richest and the most Internet-wired countries in the world, you might assume that workers’ and migrants’ rights are respected. You’d be wrong.
Between 200,000 and 700,000 migrants, a large number of them undocumented, work in South Korea. They represent several Asian countries, including Vietnam—home to the largest number of migrants to South Korea—as well as the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Nepal. They work in manufacturing, construction, fisheries and the service industry (e.g. hotel and domestic workers).
One important issue is that ethnic Korean-Chinese, who come to South Korea through a separate visa process, are given relatively preferential treatment because of their ethnic background. This lays the groundwork for inherent discrimination against workers from all the other countries, including in terms of wages. Many employers discriminate against migrants by refusing to pay them the minimum wage or forcing them to work up to 20 hours a day to get overtime pay.
Another issue is that South Korea is rather unique because companies do not use private recruiters to attract migrant workers. Instead, the government brings in migrant workers through memoranda of understanding with sending countries.
But South Korean unions, in concert and support with their brothers and sisters in the Nepali labor movement, are fighting back and making progress. Read the rest of this entry »
Two Years After Quake, Haitians Have Few Jobs or a Living Wage
Elizabeth Boomer of the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department sends us this report in conjunction with the Solidarity Center.
Two years after a massive earthquake destroyed much of Haiti’s capital and surrounding towns, the Haitian people are still struggling to recover from the disaster and the entrenched poverty that it has exacerbated.
The solution, say Haitian workers, is a Haitian-driven reconstruction effort that focuses on sustainable, equitable development aimed at improving the lives of all citizens—not just a few.
Organizing Workers in the Informal Economy: A Global Challenge and Imperative
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This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.
The majority of workers around the world eke out a living in the informal economy, left vulnerable to exploitation and caught in a hand-to-mouth existence. They are largely unprotected by the laws of their country and excluded from the social benefits that formal workers consider their right.
Caught up in a daily struggle to make ends meet, workers in the informal economy—among them domestic workers, street and market vendors, agricultural and day laborers and workers who have been pushed from permanent jobs into short-term, temporary work—often cannot organize and fight for better working conditions, fair pay and a life with dignity.
Visit to Tunisia Inspires U.S. Trade Unionists
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This is a cross post from the Solidarity Center.
For three U.S. trade unionists undertaking a 10-day learning and outreach tour to the Middle East and North Africa, meeting workers on the front lines of change has been inspirational.
The trio on the Solidarity Center-sponsored trip—Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan State AFL-CIO, William (Bill) Fletcher, director of field services and education for AFGE, and Shannon Lederer, associate director for international affairs at AFT—recently completed the first leg of the three-country tour. They spoke to the Solidarity Center en route from Tunisia to the West Bank.
In Tunis, the capital, they met with the union leaders who played a key role in the movement to end the 23-year rule of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. The struggle of the Tunisian people has inspired similar pro-democracy uprisings across the region, with various levels of success to date.
Despite Repression, Workers Continue to Organize in Belarus
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In this cross post from the Solidarity Center website, Tim Ryan, the center’s director for Asia and Europe, gives a rare glimpse of the Belarus workers’ continuing struggles.
It’s been a bad decade for the workers of Belarus. This former Soviet republic gained independence in 1991 and, for a time, new unions independent of government or company control grew significantly. But under continuing political repression by President Alexander Lukashenko over the past 10 years, recently formed workers’ organizations face extinction in what is often called the last dictatorship of Europe.
In Novopolotsk, a city about 120 miles northeast of the capital of Minsk, I visited independent unions at an oil refinery/chemical plant and a fiberglass manufacturing plant. These are huge Soviet-era complexes. The oil/chemical plant has 12,000 workers and, like 80 percent of the Belarus economy, is owned by the state. This arrangement not only discourages foreign investment, it feeds the government bureaucracy.
The state maintains its control of workers through repressive working conditions, including mandatory short-term contracts that must be renewed every year. Then there’s the overt management and political intimidation. Two years ago, the independent union claimed 1,150 members, but after union members were threatened with losing their jobs, the membership now consists of 350 brave souls. Read the rest of this entry »
Georgia Education Union Growing Stronger Despite Threats
Tim Ryan of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center sends this report on the trade unions in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Among the countries of the former Soviet Union, only in Georgia has the once government-dominated union federation reformed and become a truly free trade union federation. However, its work to promote workers’ rights and democracy has apparently rubbed the Georgian government the wrong way.
Since 2008, the Georgian government has waged a wholesale and vicious attack against the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC) and many of its affiliates, including the largest union, the Educators and Sciences Free Trade Union of Georgia (ESFTUG). In the public sector (e.g., railways, hospitals and schools), the government has blocked dues deductions from union members to the unions, starving the organizations of funds. The government also has installed police watchdogs in schools and intimidated union representatives and teachers, all while promoting a fake, government-controlled union and encouraging or threatening members of the legitimate union to disaffiliate.
Activists Rally at White House for Democracy in Egypt
![Photo credit: Adam Wright/Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council, AFL-CIO](http://blog.aflcio.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Egypt-Demo_wp.jpg "Photo credit: Adam Wright/Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council, AFL-CIO") |
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As Egyptian flags snapped in the frigid wind, nearly 100 Egyptian American and other activists—including more than 50 union members—rallied last night in front of the White House to support the Egyptian people’s ongoing struggle for freedom and democracy.
The crowd chanted, “Egypt, Egypt will be free from the Nile to the sea,” and urged President Obama to use his influence to bring democracy to Egypt.
“More people were in the streets of Cairo today than ever,” one of the Egyptian activists told the crowd. “Raise your voice, raise your voice,” they chanted, “It’s our time, it’s our choice.”
Solidarity in Action: Supporting Haitian Workers After the Earthquake
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This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.
One year ago, a massive earthquake shattered Haiti, violently disrupting the lives of more than 1 million people and killing more than 200,000. Workers in the island nation faced extraordinary challenges as they struggled to find loved ones, bury their dead, and secure shelter for their families amid the rubble.
Today, the situation for Haitian workers and their families is brighter, thanks to the generous contributions of more than 1,000 individuals and organizations to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers Fund. With this money, the Solidarity Center has been able to work closely with our Haitian and Dominican partners on the ground to provide immediate and long-term assistance as Haitian workers continue to rebuild their lives.
